2024-03-29T09:43:33Z
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/oai
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2607
2022-02-10T14:16:28Z
Relations:SRC
"220202 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Pigs vs. Boars. The Ethics of Assisting Domesticated and Wild Animals
Jalagania, Beka
Array
Among animal ethicists who accept that we have positive duties toward wild animals, there are some who maintain that these duties are considerably weaker than the duties we have toward domesticated animals, other things being equal. In this article I intend to examine whether this claim is true. To do this, I consider various factors that are often thought to render our duties to assist domesticated animals stronger than our duties to assist wild animals. My discussion will show that these factors fail to make our duties toward domesticated animals any stronger than our duties toward wild animals.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-02-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2607
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 9, No 1-2 (2021): Animals: Freedom, Justice, Welfare, Moral Status, and Conflict Cases
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2607/10163
Copyright (©) 2022 Beka Jalagania
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1153
2023-01-24T11:04:25Z
Relations:SRC
"170605 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The philosophical origins of vegetarianism. Greek Philosophers and Animal World
Mauro, Letterio
Array
Coeval philosophical texts provide no information about the extent to which the Ancient World practiced vegetarianism or about its concrete aspects. However, they offer a rich array of the arguments used to both justify and promote it. The present paper will focus on the four main philosophical arguments in favor of vegetarianism. These arguments were proposed and revised by various authors. The four arguments that will be studied are: the ascetic-religious one, mainly used by the Orphic tradition and then taken up by various authors, especially the Pythagoreans; the one based on the biopsychological affinity of all living beings, and coherently promoted by Theophrastus; the one based on the dignity and value of the animal world, widely developed especially by Plutarch; and finally the one, central to Porphyry’s treatise, that relates abstinence from meat to the need of the soul to elevate itself to the divine and be purified of any element linking it to the body.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-06-05 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1153
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 1 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1153/4069
Copyright (©) 2018 Letterio Mauro
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/16
2019-04-11T07:53:10Z
Relations:SRC
"131113 2013 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Humans’ Best Friend? The Ethical Dilemma of Pets
Andreozzi, Matteo
PhD in Philosophy at University of Milan, Italy http://www.matteoandreozzi.it
Array
The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the need for a reassessment of the moral status of pets. I argue that pets rest on an undefined ethical borderline, which brings several puzzling problems to both human-centered ethics and animal ethics and that neither of these fields adequately handles these issues. I focus specifically on human relationships with companion animals as one of the most significant interspecific relationship involving humans and pets. I also show that a deeper questioning of the moral status of pets is a required step toward the moral rethinking of human-animal relationships.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-10 13:14:54
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/16
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 1, No 2 (2013): Inside the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/16/40
Copyright (©) 2018 Matteo Andreozzi
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/5722
2024-03-06T00:59:52Z
Relations:SRC
"240305 2024 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Il sublime delle stenelle. Riflessioni sull’estetica del whalewatching
Cravero, Riccardo
Array
ABSTRACT
The present article applies some classical categories developed by the early modern tradition of philosophical aesthetics to an area of inquiry that has only recently been studied extensively by contemporary aesthetics. Here I propose to consider the practice of whalewatching as an aesthetic practice, having its specific aesthetic features and peculiarities. To do so, I will cross three very different traditions: the early modern tradition represented by the theorists of the Sublime as an aesthetic category of relevance, developed by many authors in the XVIII century and here presented via the reconstruction of Remo Bodei, the pragmatist, experience-centered aesthetics of John Dewey and the more contemporary, mostly Anglo-American, studies on animal aesthetics as a distinct topic. The discussion of the traditions mentioned is aimed at providing a theoretical framework not only valuable for an analysis of the aesthetic nature of the practice of whalewatching, but also to propose a new category of aesthetic experience, that I call here animal sublime.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2024-03-05 15:42:05
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/5722
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 2 (2023): Ethical Models for the Animal Question
eng
Copyright (©) 2024 Riccardo Cravero
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2178
2023-01-24T11:09:40Z
Relations:SRC
"201111 2020 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Respect, Inherent Value, Subjects-of-a-Life. Some Reflections on the Key Concepts of Tom Regan’s Animal Ethics
Allegri, Francesco
Università degli Studi di Siena
Array
This article reconstructs the theoretical premises of Tom Regan’s animal ethics, the American philosopher recently disappeared who has given a fundamental contribution to this area of practical ethics, by developing a theory of rights based on the extension to all subjects-of-a-life of Kantian notions such as inherent value and respect. Regan’s theory still remains the most rigorous foundation of an animal ethics alternative to the utilitarian approach of Peter Singer, but it is not without unresolved problems or not entirely satisfactory solutions. To remedy some of them, in the final part the author tries to insert into the Reganian theoretical framework elements of gradualism.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2020-11-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2178
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 7, No 1-2 (2019): The Respect Extended to Animals: Studies in Honor and in Memory of Tom Regan
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2178/8352
Copyright (©) 2020 Francesco Allegri
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/990
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"160627 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
From Posthumanism to Posthuman Ecocriticim
Oppermann, Serpil
Hacettepe University - Ankara
Array
This essay explores the impact of the posthuman turn on ecocriticism. It proposes that posthuman ecocriticism is a more engaged, more diffractive mode of reading the co-evolution of organisms and inorganic matter in their hybrid configurations. Simply put, ecocriticism becomes post-human, post-natural, and post-green in critiquing the taxonomy of the human and the nonhuman. In doing so, posthuman ecocriticism expands and enhances material ecocritical visions and includes such material agencies as biophotons, nanoelements, and intelligent machines that are expressively agentic, story-filled, efficacious, and co-emergent with homo sapiens. It critically discerns the cultural implications of bio-nano-technologies and life sciences. How do we read, for example, the blurred boundaries between iCHELLs (carbon-free inorganic chemicals) and cells (organic matter)? How do we interpret synthetic matter that responds to stimuli? What are the cultural implications of these technoscientific agencies that exhibit signs of spontaneous activity? How do we make sense of this new reality in its concrete character, and conceptualize the cultural and ecological layers of “creative becoming” encoded in material agencies? Such questions are pertinent for the apprehension of posthuman ecocriticism that offers immersion in previously uncharted territories as a post-human structure within which to think about human/nonhuman/inhuman natures. The newly emerging strange natures that transfigure human ecologies will be part of my discussion, and there will be references to literary texts that are labeled posthuman novels.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-06-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/990
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 1 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/990/3389
Copyright (©) 2018 Serpil Oppermann
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1367
2023-01-24T11:06:08Z
Relations:SRC
"180726 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Beyond Scarcity: Perspectives on Energy Transition
Geerts, Robert Jan
Wageningen University
Array
Two dominant lines of reasoning in the philosophical debate on energy transition can be described as boundless consumerism (we should find ways to keep growing) and eco-frugality (we should reduce our impact as much as possible). This paper problematizes both approaches via their implicit understanding of the good life, and proposes a third alternative: qualitative abundance. Society is not interested in any sustainable energy system, but in one that caters to our needs and enables us to flourish as human beings. Because the dominant lines in the current debate share a concern for scarcity, they fail to raise the question of a “good” energy system, and therefore the possibility of a positive energy ethics. Qualitative abundance initiates discourse around prosperity (with boundless consumerism) and simplicity (with ecofrugality), thus expanding and enriching debates on energy transition.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-07-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1367
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 1 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1367/4944
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1367/4945
Copyright (©) 2018 Robert Jan Geerts
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/675
2018-11-28T11:57:11Z
Relations:SRC
"141111 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Boundary Transgressions: the Human-Animal Chimera in Science Fiction
Tsitas, Evelyn
PhD Candidate, Creative Media, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne.
Array
This paper explores how science fiction writers have used human-animal chimera experiments as the inspiration for creating characters that challenge us to consider what is quintessentially human and what is animal. Since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) created a manufactured man from parts of dead animals and humans combined, and H.G. Wells wrote about vivisection used to create the Beast Men in The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1896, animal experimentation has been mirrored in science fiction. Xenotransplantation is used with tragic-comic effect in Mikhail Bulgakov’s long banned 1932 novel A Dog’s Heart, and with pathos in Malorie Blackman’s 1997 children’s novel Pig Heart Boy. Shostakovich’s recently resurrected 1932 satiric opera, Orango, explores the results of doctors inseminating female primates with their own sperm. In Vincenzo Natali’s 2009 transgenic science fiction horror film Splice, Dren – the ultimate chimera – is created by scientists Clive and Elsa splicing multiple animal and human DNA. As Donna Haraway predicted in A Manifesto for Cyborgs (1991), “[b]y the late twentieth century […] nothing really convincingly settles the separation of the human and animal”. In investigating the manufactured human-animal chimera as a cyborg, the literary trope of the mad scientist that emerged with Frankenstein is examined.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-29 10:08:51
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/675
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 2 (2014): Minding Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/675/1789
Copyright (©) 2018 Evelyn Tsitas
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2753
2023-01-25T16:04:00Z
Relations:SRC
"230123 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Ecosocial Autonomy as an Educational Ideal
Pulkki, Jani
Tampere University. Faculty of Education and Culture. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jani-Pulkki-2
Keto, Sami
Tampere University. Faculty of Education and Culture.
Array
Autonomy – or rational self-control – is not only fashionable as an educational ideal, but also in present-day economics, ethics, and society in general. However, the concept of traditional autonomy is problematic because it privileges humans and treats the rest of nature primarily as resources fit only for human exploitation. This anthropocentrism has led human beings to see themselves as superior to nature and separate. Ecosocial autonomy is an attempt to redress the balance, by contextualising autonomy so it incorporates the idea of self-control, while taking into account the impact of humankind on our surrounding ecosystems. Our formulation of ecosocial autonomy is an extension of relational autonomy – based mainly on ecological, ecosocial, and ecofeminist ideas. Ecosocial autonomy is thus contextualized within a multispecies society which includes our interdependencies with other living creatures. Whereas the individualist idea of autonomy suggests a human being owes nothing to society, ecosocial autonomy acknowledges the need to cultivate aspects of self-sufficiency that combine reason, emotional maturity, and will. A competitive society presupposes individual autonomy and the need to defend oneself. Ecosocial autonomy advocates a form of social interaction that diverts the human energy misspent on individual competition to mutually beneficial collaboration.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-01-23 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2753
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 2 (2022): Human Beings’ Moral Relations with Other Animals and the Natural Environment
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2753/10706
Copyright (©) 2023 Jani Pulkki, Sami Keto
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/659
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"140616 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Learning about the emotional lives of kangaroos, cognitive justice and environmental sustainability
Garlick, Steve
Austen, Rosemary
Array
This paper reports on research into wildlife emotion, interpretation and usefulness as a means for broad-scale learning about environmental sustainability. Part of the Australian landscape for 16 million years, the iconic kangaroo has characteristics that make them suited, as wild animals, for humans to learn about environmental integrity. A ‘new way of knowing’ about sustainability is proposed that seeks to learn directly from wildlife through their emotional states using a ‘being-for’ (Bauman 1995), relational (Derrida 2002), ethic of care (Donovan 1996, Noddings 1984, Kheel 2008). Within the context of cognitive justice we propose wildlife knowledge systems that need to be respected. We incorporate recent research on affective neuroscience in mammals (Panksepp 1998 and 2004) into our own work in rehabilitating large numbers of seriously injured kangaroos prior to their release/return to the wild (Garlick and Austen 2010). This work enables identifying and interpreting emotion markers in various environmental contexts and their consequent sustainability. Progressing from a case example of learning through a particular transformational animal encounter, to where an entire community might be similarly transformed to address sustainability questions is possible to conceptualise through the ‘ecoversity’.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2014-06-16 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/659
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 1 (2014): Minding Animals: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/659/1697
Copyright (©) 2018 Steve Garlick, Rosemary Austen
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2786
2022-02-10T14:16:28Z
Relations:SRC
"220202 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Unitarianism or Hierarchical Approach for Moral Status? A Very Subtle Difference
Allegri, Francesco
Array
The article is inspired by Shelly Kagan’s recent book “How to Count Animals”, which focuses on the alternative between a unitarian and a hierarchical conception of the moral status of beings in the animal ethics debate. The paper finds a way of compromise between the two perspectives in the principle of equal consideration of interests, but above all it lessens the role of such opposition – especially its practical relevance – by emphasizing that, regardless of the fact of conceiving moral status in terms of all or nothing or in gradual terms, what really counts in our attitude towards non-human animals is to assign them an important moral consideration, that protects them not only from suffering, but also from an induced death in advance of natural times, a thesis that is compatible with both unitarianism and a hierarchical approach.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-02-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2786
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 9, No 1-2 (2021): Animals: Freedom, Justice, Welfare, Moral Status, and Conflict Cases
eng
Copyright (©) 2022 Francesco Allegri
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/565
2023-01-24T11:04:25Z
Relations:SRC
"170605 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Skeptics and ‘The White Stuff’: Promotion of Cows’ Milk and Other Nonhuman Animal Products in the Skeptic Community as Normative Whiteness
Wrenn, Corey Lee
Monmouth University http://www.coreyleewrenn.com
Array
This article discusses a dairy advertising campaign featuring skeptic Derren Brown. I explore the various health claims made in the ads as well as a report Brown featured on his website that claimed consumption of cow’s milk is linked to longevity. I discuss how dairy consumption is largely linked to race and ethnicity. It is a practice enjoyed primarily by European whites as most nonwhites are lactose intolerant. Lactose intolerance is a normal biological process associated with weaning, but it is medicalized and made deviant because it is not part of the white experience. I also mention comments made by Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins that normalize Western diets with unsubstantiated claims. This article takes a critical look at skeptic leaders who have failed to address misleading information perpetuated by exploitative animal product industries.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-06-05 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/565
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 1 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/565/1477
Copyright (©) 2018 Corey Lee Wrenn
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2466
2023-01-24T11:11:12Z
Relations:SRC
"210607 2021 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Distributed Skills in Camel Herding. Cooperation in a Human-Animal Relationship in Somaliland
Schwere, Raphael
Array
This article examines interspecies cooperation in camel herding in Somaliland. It presents the case of a particular joint activity in this task-scape: moving a camel herd, by leading and driving it, from the night-camp to the daytime grazing area and back. The analytical aim is to clarify the role that skills and nonhuman agency play in the constitution of cooperative human-camel relationships. On the basis of empirical data, collected in a multispecies ethnographic project by following and observing one herd and herder closely, this article demonstrates how nonhuman agency, as an individual capacity to engage in an activity and an epistemological potential, manifests in this human-camel cooperative task. Cooperation is made possible through human-camel sociality and intersubjectivity, through the ability to interpret and respond to each other, and it depends on the empathetic acknowledgement of the enabling or disabling powers of each counterpart, her or his agency. Leading and driving camels is a skilled practice requiring the responding and enabling capacities of the cooperation partner. Hence, it is a case of distributed skills – distributed in the sense that skills of humans and nonhumans are intertwined in this practice, that they complement each other.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2021-06-07 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2466
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 8, No 1-2 (2020): Finding Agency in Nonhumans
eng
Copyright (©) 2021 Raphael Schwere
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1072
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"161117 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Dialogo Ergo Sum: from a Reflexive Ontology to a Relational Ontology
Marchesini, Roberto
Direttore del Centro Studi Filosofia Postumanista
Array
Knowledge is a dialogue with the world, in countless ways: art, technology, cataloguing, exploration are ultimately forms of dialogue. We learn through dreams, hallucinations, alterations of consciousness, rational focusing, motivational conjugation or emotional marking, immersion in our Umwelt or denial thereof by means of technopoiesis. Each dialogue brings us a true picture, not an appearance enslaved to a sensory illusion or to becoming: the resulting image is as true as that which is hidden to show itself to a different dialogical scan. This papers aims to show how culture is a relational outcome. In this sense, it is necessary to embrace a posthumanistic approach. The humanistic assumption that founds the human “juxta propria principia” – according to its own principles – must be revised. It is undeniable that this awareness will inspire new poetics and new experiences without claiming to create them from scratch. Just as the infinite was before us even prior to the Copernican revolution, so hybridization has always been part of the human experience and is not the outcome of infiltrative technologies.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-11-17 13:24:21
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1072
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 2 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1072/3745
Copyright (©) 2018 Roberto Marchesini
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/7
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Sickness and Abnormal Behaviors as Indicators of Animal Suffering
Panzera, Michele
Laboratory of Veterinary Comparative Ethology, Department of Veterinary Science,
University of Messina, Italy
Array
The welfare status of an animal represents the integrated outcome of all sensory and other neural inputs from within its body and from the environment. These inputs are processed and interpreted by the animal’s brain according to its species-specific and individual nature and experiences, and then are perceived consciously. That being said, for an animal to be able to perceive states that we believe would reflect its welfare, the animal must be alive and conscious, and it must also be sentient. Previous studies, which I cite and describe further later in this paper, show that the brains of animals, especially mammals, have enough complexity to process mental states. The mental abilities of an animal arise as a result of sensory and other neural inputs linked to nutritional, environmental, health and behavioral components of physical or functional abilities. They are also linked to cognitive-neural inputs and activity related to external challenge. All of these components are integrated and expressed mentally as varying degrees of thirst, hunger, weakness, debility, breathlessness, nausea, sickness, pain, distress, fear, anxiety, helplessness, boredom and so on.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2013-06-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/7
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 1, No 1 (2013): Inside the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals: Part I
eng
Copyright (©) 2018 Michele Panzera
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1344
2023-01-24T11:07:45Z
Relations:SRC
"181127 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Desiring Ethics: Reflections on Veganism from an Observational Study of Transitions in Everyday Energy Use
Dal Gobbo, Alice
Ph.D. Candidate
School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University
Cardiff
Array
Ecological issues are becoming more and more salient to our everyday lives as the effects of climate change become evident, resource depletion is put into government’s agendas, access to energy becomes increasingly costly and differentially distributed. They call on us to reconsider not only energy consumption and production systems, but also the very cultural and social premises of our societies. In particular, we need rethinking the anthropocentrism that has founded for centuries human exploitation of the earth. In this article I draw on empirical material from an observational study of everyday energy transitions in order to reflect psychosocially on the potentialities of veganism as an energy ethics of sustainability “beyond anthropocentrism”. I argue that, despite many promises, the transition to a plant-based diet can become politically dangerous if adopted (and promoted) as an abstract moral imperative and not as a situated and ethical one.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-11-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1344
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 2 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1344/4864
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1344/4865
Copyright (©) 2018 Alice Dal Gobbo
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/880
2018-10-17T08:06:32Z
Relations:SRC
"151102 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Importance of Wild-Animal Suffering
Tomasik, Brian
Array
Wild animals are vastly more numerous than animals on factory farms, in laboratories, or kept as pets. Most of these animals endure intense suffering during their lives, such as from disease, hunger, cold, injury, and chronic fear of predators. Many wild animals give birth to tens or hundreds of offspring at a time, most of which die young, often in painful ways. This suggests that suffering plausibly dominates happiness in nature. Humans are not helpless to reduce wild-animal suffering. Indeed, humans already influence ecosystems in substantial ways, so the question is often not whether to intervene but how to intervene. Because ecology is so complex, we should study carefully how to reduce wild-animal suffering, giving due consideration to unintended long-run consequences. We should also promote concern for wild animals and challenge environmentalist assumptions among activists, academics, and other sympathetic groups. Finally, we should ensure that our descendants think twice before spreading ecosystems to areas where they do not yet exist.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-11-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/880
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 2 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/880/2869
Copyright (©) 2018 Brian Tomasik
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/4220
2024-01-31T14:04:19Z
Relations:SRC
"230926 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Degrowth and Pedagogy. Training Future Teachers in a Context of Ecological Crisis
Díez-Gutiérrez, Enrique-Javier
University of León https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3399-5318
Palomo-Cermeño, Eva
Rey Juan Carlos University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7433-4084
Array
The initial training received in Spanish faculties of education by future teachers is influenced by the principles and approaches passed on by their lecturers and professors over the course of their programmes. This in turn will have repercussions on the schooling they provide to their future pupils. An examination was undertaken of the discourse relating to degrowth of academic staff and students at the Faculty of Education of the University of León, as a case study. This discourse was analysed through the triangulation of three research tools of a qualitative nature: interviews, discussion groups, and a documentary review of teaching guides for subjects taught in that faculty. The results show that university teaching staff tends to reproduce models linked to the predominant neoliberal discourse. Although the study has limitations due to the small sample size used in a case study, it is believed that its outcomes may be transferable to other university contexts. The conclusion is that there is an urgent need to provide training in degrowth to the teaching staff of faculties of education if there is to by education in a model of degrowth allowing future generations to inherit a sustainable planet.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-09-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/4220
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 1 (2023): The Importance of Language in the Relationships between Humans and Non-Humans
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/4220/13234
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/4220/13235
Copyright (©) 2023 Enrique-Javier Díez-Gutiérrez, Eva Palomo
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/671
2018-11-28T11:57:11Z
Relations:SRC
"141111 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Alpha: the Figure in the Cage
MacDonald, Juliet
Research Assistant in the School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield
Array
Drawing is sometimes referred to as a definitively human activity. In this article, drawings by nonhuman animals, particularly primates, are discussed as evidence that the activity is not essentially or exclusively human. In particular the research focuses on one chimpanzee, Alpha, whose drawings were the subject of an experiment in Gestalt psychology published in 1951. The article traces her early life as the first chimpanzee to be born as part of a breeding program established by Robert Yerkes, whose scientific project has been critically examined by Donna Haraway (1989; 1991). Alpha was cared for in the home of two scientists in infancy but later moved to an enclosure with other chimpanzees. Alpha’s desire to draw is shown to have developed in the context of both human contact and physical captivity. Subsequent citations of the drawing experiment with Alpha are discussed as evidence that drawings by nonhuman primates have provoked academic interest, although commentators are cautious in attributing significance to them. The continuing potential of Alpha’s drawings to generate discussion and challenge anthropocentric assumptions is suggested as the disruptive legacy of this particular laboratory animal within the process of knowledge production.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-29 10:08:51
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/671
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 2 (2014): Minding Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/671/1767
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/671/1768
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/671/1769
Copyright (©) 2018 Juliet MacDonald
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/3183
2023-01-25T16:04:00Z
Relations:SRC
"230123 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
What We Owe Owls. Nonideal Relationality among Fellow Creatures in the Old Growth Forest
Almassi, Ben
Governors State University
Array
Though many of us have constructed our lives (or have had them constructed for us) such that it is easy to ignore or forget, human lives are entangled with other animals in many ways. Some interspecies relations would arguably exist in some form or another even under an ideal model of animal ethics. Others have an inescapably non-ideal character – these relationships exist as they do because things have gone wrong. In such circumstances we have reparative duties to animals we have wronged because we have wronged them. Here I draw upon Christine Korsgaard’s “Fellow Creatures” (2018) and other nonideal approaches to animal ethics to critically assess the United States Fish & Wildlife Service practice of killing barred owls to protect endangered spotted owls in the old growth forest of the Pacific Northwest. This is a difficult case to be sure, but one that can benefit from non-ideal moral assessment in terms of interspecies relational repair. I argue for increased spotted owl habitat preservation and forest restoration as an alternative to barred owl removal that better aligns with both nonideal relational animal ethics and stated US Fish & Wildlife Service values.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-01-23 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/3183
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 2 (2022): Human Beings’ Moral Relations with Other Animals and the Natural Environment
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3183/11843
Copyright (©) 2023 Ben Almassi
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1254
2023-01-24T11:04:49Z
Relations:SRC
"171128 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Veganism: Lifestyle or Political Movement? Looking for Relations Beyond Antispeciesism
Bertuzzi, Niccolò
Array
In recent years, various issues related to non-human animals emerged as elements of interest among public opinion, also involving debates in various academic fields. If philosophy, law, economics and cultural studies can already boast relevant works also at an Italian level, it is not the same for political sociology and social movement studies. In order to analyse the variegated archipelago of national animal advocacy, we stratified the phenomenon into three movement areas (animal care, protectionism, antispeciesism) with the goal to test some hypothetical differences and verify eventual convergences. Our data come from two main sources: an online survey and 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with leaders and/or “relevant” activists of groups and associations. In this article we specifically focus on those questions related to dietary consumption, veganism as a philosophy/lifestyle and the use of non-human animals for human interest. An increasing number of perspectives are focusing more and more on individual lifestyles and members’/activists’ modes of consumption, shifting the action from the streets to the shops. This change of paradigm often blurs more radical and political approaches characterized by structural anti-capitalist frames and actions and that involve(d) forms of popular collective protests aimed at proposing alternatives ideas of future and societies.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-11-28 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1254
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 2 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1254/4509
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1254/4510
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1254/4511
Copyright (©) 2018 Niccolò Bertuzzi
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2371
2022-02-10T14:16:28Z
Relations:SRC
"220202 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Chincoteague Ponies and What It Means To Be Free
Flower, Alexis
Canisius College
Array
The Chincoteague pony swim is a cherished tradition in Chincoteague, Virginia, where noble saltwater cowboys round up wild horses to be sold at auction the next day. The island thrives off this event’s economic impact, which is amplified through Marguerite Henry’s series “Misty of Chincoteague”, allowing the pony’s fame to reach all corners of the world. The tradition is rooted in Chincoteague culture, but several different ethical aspects come into question after critical consideration. The islander’s economic dependence and pride in the ponies and yearly round up act as a disguise for these ethical quandaries, through the practice of modern myth making. This paper explores concepts of breed, the state of being wild vs. free, language surrounding horses, and hidden symbols within the swims organization to uncover the covert way in which Chincoteague culture upholds colonial values.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-02-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2371
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 9, No 1-2 (2021): Animals: Freedom, Justice, Welfare, Moral Status, and Conflict Cases
eng
Copyright (©) 2022 Alexis Flower
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1154
2023-01-24T11:04:25Z
Relations:SRC
"170605 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
God, the Bible and the Environment. An Historical Excursus on the Relationship between Christian Religion and Ecology
Damonte, Marco
Array
The aim of this paper is double. On the one hand, it focuses on the relationship between Christian religion and ecology in order to inquire into the most common charges that environmentalist movements address to Christians and to evaluate them showing their historical roots. On the other, this study will show how some recent suggestions taken from Catholic authors – who, at the same time, are the traditional ones – and from the teachings of the Church, could be useful to encourage and to promote ecological ethics founded on human responsibility. In order to do so, an historical method will be used. In the first part, some authors from the Patristic-Scholastic age will be take into consideration, with particular care to Augustine. In the second part an article by Lynn White will be presented as an emblematic turning point in the relationship between Christian religion and ecologists, paying attention first, to the Puritan context of his writings, and, second, to the birth of contemporary environmentalist theories. In the last part Romano Guardini’s work and Francis’ Laudato sì will be considered. My attention will be focused on the interpretation of some relevant verses taken from the Bible book of Genesis.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-06-05 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1154
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 1 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1154/4076
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1154/4077
Copyright (©) 2018 Marco Damonte
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/17
2019-04-11T08:12:54Z
Relations:SRC
"131113 2013 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Human Relationship With Animals Reading the Book of Tobit in the Light of Christian Tradition
Nicora, Gianfranco
Massaro, Alma
PhD, Università degli Studi di Genova
Array
In this paper we argue that the Book of Tobit, by presenting a new model of companionship between a human being and a dog, constitutes a vision of a future era, where humans and animals will live as fellows rather than rivals. In so doing we focus on the reading of the Holy Scriptures placing emphasis on the role of animals, moving from the Book of Tobit through the book of Genesis, to Jesus’ new alliance and the promise of new heavens and a new earth. We also show that the Book of Tobit, even if it is deeply encouched in the anthropocentric view particular to Jewish culture, includes insights of non-violence toward animals as well as vegetarianism that are both fundamental and prophetic aspects of the new ethic suggested by Isaiah’s prophecies and by the good news announced in the New Testament.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-10 13:14:54
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/17
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 1, No 2 (2013): Inside the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/17/46
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/17/47
Copyright (©) 2018 Gianfranco Nicora, Alma Massaro
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1156
2017-06-05T13:36:37Z
Relations:SRC
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2043
2023-01-24T11:09:40Z
Relations:SRC
"201111 2020 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Almost Like Waging War. Tom Regan and the Conditions for Using Violence for the Sake of Animals
Zuolo, Federico
Università degli Studi di Genova
Array
This paper investigates Tom Regan’s attitude towards violence as a litmus test to understand the justifiability of the use of violence in animal rights activists (ARAs). Although Regan’s take seems uncontroversially against a recourse to violence, there is an ambiguity in his position. By comparing Regan’s conditions for the legitimate use of violence for the sake of animal liberation with the standard conditions for jus ad bellum, I show that Regan construed the conditions for the former in a specular manner as the conditions for the latter. However, since he was not an absolute pacifist, there is some contradiction, and he should have been more willing to justify some recourse to violence than he in fact does. I conclude by gesturing towards some possible changes that his thought should undergo in order to adjust this incoherence.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2020-11-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2043
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 7, No 1-2 (2019): The Respect Extended to Animals: Studies in Honor and in Memory of Tom Regan
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2043/7799
Copyright (©) 2020 Federico Zuolo
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/991
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"160627 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Threatening Animals?
Sullivan, Heather I.
Professor of German, Trinity University, Texas
Array
Threatening predators and pernicious beasts continue to play significant roles in the human imaginary even as human threats to other species increase exponentially in the age of Anthropocene. While posthumanist animal studies and material ecocriticism sync human and other animals within the biosphere’s living interactions, our shared material reciprocity is currently skewing ever more towards the human threat to other species – and so to ourselves as co-dependents. This essay explores the meaning of “threatening” and “threatened”. Five German texts presenting human-animal interactions in the Anthropocene’s span by Goethe, Kafka, Stifter, Duve, and Trojanow unsettle expectations of threats. In Goethe’s “Novella”, an escaped lion and tiger enter German forests and are subdued, whereas Stifter’s “Brigitta” depicts a pastoral peace threatened by wolves. Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” re-shapes David Abram’s idea of “becoming animal”, and Karen Duve’s “Rain Novel” and Ilija Trojanow’s “Melting Ice”, recent climate change novels, juxtapose the human threat to the world’s climate with the onslaught of endless slugs and a biting penguin. Finally, the resurgence of wild boars in Berlin’s urban space in the past few years renegotiates human, nonhuman, and posthuman boundaries in an urban ecology.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-06-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/991
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 1 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/991/3396
Copyright (©) 2018 Heather I. Sullivan
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1348
2023-01-24T11:06:08Z
Relations:SRC
"180726 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Ethics, Nafthism, and the Fossil Subject
Vadén, Tere
Researcher
BIOS Research Unit
Helsinki, Finland
Salminen, Antti
Array
Several socio-economic and technological conditions shaped the faces of modernity, but without massive energy surplus modernity as we know it would not be possible at all. Fossil fuels are not created by humans. Consequently, part of the credit for modernity that is assigned to the other (human) conditions, belongs to (non-human) fossil fuels. The misplaced assignment of credit also points to modernity’s characteristic blindness to its material conditions. By and large, modernity has been described as a human victory over nature. This is supremely ironic, as the supposed human independence relies on a particular natural phenomenon. Unfortunately, this forgetfulness extends into ethics. Typical modern views on ethics rely on a subject with an autonomous capacity to act and deliberate. There is a structural parallel between the way in which the modern subject detaches itself from its material and social surroundings and the way in which a fossil fuel economy detaches production from consumption, products from waste, actions from consequences. If ethics is blind to the way in which the detachment is dependent on a particular energy regime, it is unlikely to result in a robust de-fossilization. In this article, we argue that the notions of modernity and (modern) subjectivication are made possible by non-human energy, namely fossil fuels. Thus, energy ethics for the postfossil era will be ultimately based on a-subjective and non-modern premises.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-07-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1348
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 1 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1348/4881
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1348/5410
Copyright (©) 2018 Tere Vadén, Antti Salminen
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/822
2018-10-17T08:06:32Z
Relations:SRC
"150511 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Harm They Inflict When Values Conflict: Why Diversity Does not Matter
Mosquera, Julia
University of Reading
Array
Some policies that manage natural processes have the purpose of conserving and/or promoting the diversity that exists in an ecosystem. On many occasions, these policies conflict with values such as individual wellbeing. This paper looks at this issue. It focuses first on clarifying the concept of diversity. Second, it looks at whether diversity has value, and what kind of value it may have. Finally, it argues that although diversity is valuable, it may be overridden in cases in which actual harms exceed future benefits. Therefore, policies that promote diversity should, in some cases, be abandoned.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-05-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/822
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 1 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/822/2570
Copyright (©) 2018 Julia Mosquera
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/4692
2024-01-31T14:04:19Z
Relations:SRC
"230926 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Veganism’s Anti-Anthropocentric Capacity. A Critical Analysis of the Advocacy Discourse of Three Prominent Vegan Organisations
Gough, Louis Arthur
University of the West of England
Array
Anthropocentrism has been identified as a root cause of nonhuman animal and intrahuman oppressions and the environmental crisis. Veganism has been celebrated as a philosophy and practice capable of undermining anthropocentrism, yet the anti-anthropocentric capacity of vegan advocacy is understudied. The current research provides a critical analysis of the online advocacy discourse of three prominent vegan organisations – The Vegan Society, PETA, and Viva! – elucidating areas of anthropocentric reinforcement and subversion in correspondence to the conceptual characteristics of anthropocentrism: human-centred narcissism and exceptionalism, the perceived human/animal dichotomy, and a corresponding moral hierarchy that exalts particular understandings of the “human” to the detriment of all considered other-than (Calarco 2014). Given the interconnectedness of nonhuman and human oppressions and importance of decentring the anthropocentric conception of the “human”, the intersectional strengths and shortcomings of the organisations’ vegan advocacy is additionally considered, with many areas of needed improvement being highlighted. The article contributes to research on vegan/nonhuman animal rights advocacy and social movement communication, and facilitates the future production of anti-anthropocentric, intersectional, vegan advocacy campaigns.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-09-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/4692
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 1 (2023): The Importance of Language in the Relationships between Humans and Non-Humans
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/4692/13886
Copyright (©) 2023 Louis Arthur Gough
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/660
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"140616 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Captivating Creatures: Zoos, Marketing, and the Commercial Success of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
Schwalm, Tanja
Array
The visually striking tiger on the cover of Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, originally published in 2001, highlights the role of exotic, charismatic animals for the marketing of fiction to a world-wide readership. Deploying zoo and circus animal imagery, Life of Pi emphasises commercially attractive animals in packaging and content. Indeed, the notion that animal entertainment within zoos especially is not only attractive, but also beneficial to the animals themselves, reassures consumers and alleviates feelings of guilt. Life of Pi succeeds commercially for many of the same reasons that zoos profit from exhibiting non-human animals. It portrays a mythology of “good zoos” as a kind of Ark, ostensibly underpinned by science and research, and thus represents a deeply conservative reaction to growing calls that for ethical and environmental reasons we need to rethink our consumption-based relationship to animals. This paper examines some of the novel’s arguments in favour of zoos and discusses the ways in which a “story with animals is the better story.” This paper makes use of an activist approach to literature and starts from the premise that an Animal Studies approach necessarily takes the interests of animals and their subjectivity as the central concern
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2014-06-16 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/660
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 1 (2014): Minding Animals: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/660/1705
Copyright (©) 2018 Tanja Schwalm
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2852
2022-07-20T08:35:01Z
Relations:SRC
"220713 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Korsgaard’s Duties towards Animals: Two Difficulties
Mueller, Nico Dario
University of Basel
Array
Building on her previous work (2004, 2012, 2013), Christine Korsgaard’s recent book Fellow Creatures (2018) has provided the most highly developed Kantian account of duties towards animals. I raise two issues with the results of this account. First, the duties that Korsgaard accounts for are duties “towards” animals in name only. Since Korsgaard does not reject the Kantian conception in which direct duties towards others require mutual moral constraint, what she calls duties “towards” animals are merely Kantian duties regarding animals, verbally repackaged. Hence, Korsgaard’s account is best understood as an expansion (albeit a substantial one) of Kant’s own view of an indirect duty regarding animals. Second, the expansion does not take us quite as far as Korsgaard hopes. She aims for a conception in which our duties towards animals and humans are equally important, but her argument does not support this conclusion. I point out the potential for a more radical revision of Kant’s anthropocentrism that rejects his underlying assumption that duties towards others are based on mutual constraint.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-07-13 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2852
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 1 (2022): Animal Ethics, Ethology, and Food Ethics
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2852/11004
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2852/11005
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2852/11006
Copyright (©) 2022 Nico Dario Mueller
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1255
2023-01-24T11:04:49Z
Relations:SRC
"171128 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
A New Bet for Scientists? Implementing the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach in the practices of research institutions
L’Astorina, Alba
Di Fiore, Monica
Array
In last years, the European Commission has promoted an approach that seeks to anticipate and assess potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim to foster the “design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation”. The approach, called Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), has become a crosscutting theme of Horizon 2020, the most important European research funding system. RRI has its roots in a longstanding debate on the sense of techno-scientific innovation and its power to produce both benefits and harm, producing risks, arising ethical dilemmas and controversial questions. It proposes a framework for governing the innovation process asking all actors to become mutually responsible and responsive in order to reach “socially desirable” and “acceptable” innovation goals. Years after its emergence as a policy concept, studies and reports have evaluated the efforts to mainstream RRI in the national policies, revealing that questions still remain open to discussion. In this paper we will give a brief overview of RRI approach, what it is, why and how it emerged and developed within the policy discourse in the European context. We will then review some key lessons concerning opportunities and challenges embedded in this approach, focusing on the role of science.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-11-28 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1255
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 2 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1255/4514
Copyright (©) 2018 Alba L’Astorina, Monica Di Fiore
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2467
2023-01-24T11:11:12Z
Relations:SRC
"210607 2021 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
A Sea Cow Goes to Court. Extinction and Animal Agency in a Struggle Against Militarism
Palz, Marius
Array
In Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa, the Japanese government is constructing a new military base for the United States Marine Corps despite ongoing local opposition and protest. Sea grass beds, which are potential feeding grounds of the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, are situated within the construction area. Because of its critical status close to regional extinction, the dugong was declared a Natural Monument of Japan in 1972, arguably putting it under protection of the United States National Historic Preservation Act in context of the base construction. Based on this assumption, and the dugong’s cultural significance for the people of Okinawa, the issue was brought to an American court, a rare case where an animal plays a central role in a lawsuit dealing with cultural property. Based on Eduardo Kohn’s anthropology beyond the human and his thoughts on life as a semiotic process the article explores the entanglements between dugongs and people. I argue that in this process dugongs play an active role. Through their interpretation of the generated indexical signs at the construction site and their resulting behaviour, these animals give humans the opportunity to convert their presence and absence into the sphere of symbolic human interaction.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2021-06-07 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2467
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 8, No 1-2 (2020): Finding Agency in Nonhumans
eng
Copyright (©) 2021 Marius Palz
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1073
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"161117 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Party of the Anthropocene: Post-humanism, Environmentalism and the Post-anthropocentric Paradigm Shift
Ferrando, Francesca
Faculty Member, NYU
Array
This article accounts for an environmental standpoint to be part of the post-human approach by accessing the post-human as a post-humanism, a post-anthropocentrism and a post-dualism. The main goal of this paper is to call for a post-anthropocentric turn by emphasizing the fact that the Anthropocene and the actual ecological collapse are only the symptoms; it is time to address the causes, which have been detected in the anthropocentric worldview based on an autonomous conception of the human as a self-defying agent. An urgent answer to this scenario lays in philosophy, and specifically, in a theoretical and pragmatical post-anthropocentric shift in the current perception of the human. This article reflects on the ideal, but also uneasy, practices of letting go of anthropocentric privileges. Such changes can only result by fully acknowledging the human species in relation to the environment. The Anthropocene shall thus be addressed, together with sustainable forms of producing (less), recycling and co-existing with other species, with a socio-political and cultural shift: a passage from humanism to post-humanism, here underlined in its specific meaning of post-anthropocentrism. The methodology of this article develops as an assemblage of theoretical thinking, creative writing and artistic image analysis.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-11-17 13:24:21
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1073
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 2 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1073/3752
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1073/3753
Copyright (©) 2018 Francesca Ferrando
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/8
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Relationship between Humans and Other Animals in European Animal Welfare Legislation
Sobbrio, Paola
Affiliated to Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy
Array
Beginning with the Treaty of Amsterdam and then later with the Treaty of Lisbon (TFEU), Europe has more than once formally recognized nonhuman animals as sentient beings. This recognition spurred the creation of regulations that provide for the protection and promotion of animal welfare. However, this protection seems to contain many exceptions, particularly regarding the consideration from which these regulations stemmed: the recognition of animal sentience. In this paper, I argue that the regulations generated by this legislation, far from being aimed at improving the living conditions of nonhuman animals used by the human animals, are actually put in place in order to obtain additional benefits for humans. These benefits include, but are not limited to, the reduction of zoonotic diseases (in the case of nonhuman animals being used for breeding), and the improvement in predictability of animal models (in the case of nonhuman animals being used for experimental purposes). While the rhetoric of these laws seems to endorse the protection and welfare of animals as sentient beings, they actually allow for their enslavement and objectification. In the end, the credibility of Europe’s acknowledgement of animal sentience is greatly hampered by the institutionalization of very cruel practices allowed by animal welfare regulations.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2013-06-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/8
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 1, No 1 (2013): Inside the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals: Part I
eng
Copyright (©) 2018 Paola Sobbrio
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1615
2023-01-24T11:07:45Z
Relations:SRC
"181127 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Human Energy: Philosophical-Anthropological Presuppositions of Anthropogenic Energy, Movement, and Activity and their Implications for Well-being
Meinhold, Roman
Ph.D., Asst.Professor
Mahidol University - International College (MUIC)
Bangkok - Thailand http://www.roman-meinhold.com http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8034-6620
Array
In this paper I focus on rather neglected considerations regarding human energy, movement, and activity, instead of joining the well-developed discourse on sustainable electricity production and moderate energy consumption. Thereby the paper elucidates a more holistic understanding of energy, since it is usually assumed that when considering energy – in most cases – people engaging in this discourse, refer to electricity. The paper grounds the phenomena of human energy production and consumption on the anthropological fact that humans are active and moving – and essentially need to be moving, in one way or another and as long as they are alive – for the sake of their and others’ well-being. Such a philosophical anthropology of energy, movement, and activity can, for example, be traced back to philosophic-anthropological claims in the oeuvre of Aristotle who regarded different kinds of activities or movement (both understood here in a broader sense) as essential for the well-being of both individuals and society because they foster and actualize human creativity and fulfillment. Relating the anthropological centrality of human movement to the current discourse on (alternative) energy production and consumption, the paper develops a more holistic ontology of energy. The objective of this paper is to promote this holistic understanding of energy as activity and movement in order to encourage a more wisely selected and limited substitution of fuel- and electricity-powered machines with human-driven movement. Such a broader understanding of the energy concept will not only save electricity and fossil fuels, but will also potentially increase the well-being of humans, society, and the natural environment.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-11-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1615
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 2 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1615/5877
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1615/5878
Copyright (©) 2018 Roman Meinhold
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/881
2018-10-17T08:06:32Z
Relations:SRC
"151102 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
A Welfare State for Elephants? A Case Study of Compassionate Stewardship
Pearce, David
Array
Technological advances over the next few decades will mean that every cubic meter of the planet will be computationally accessible to surveillance, micromanagement and control. Such unprecedented power places an immense burden of responsibility on the planet’s cognitively dominant species – Homo sapiens. Status quo bias equates the natural with the morally good; yet the immense burden of suffering in Nature calls this intuition into question. Human and non-human animals typically flourish best when free-living rather than incarcerated or wild. This paper presents a costed case study of compassionate stewardship of an entire species of free-living non-human animals. The successful construction of an elephant welfare state would be a key historical milestone on the road to a compassionately run global ecosystem.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-11-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/881
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 2 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/881/2876
Copyright (©) 2018 David Pearce
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/5098
2024-03-06T00:59:52Z
Relations:SRC
"240305 2024 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Affective Turn in Animal Ethics
Acampora, Ralph R
Hofstra University
Array
ABSTRACT
This article argues that rationalism no longer rules the field of animal ethics – an “affective turn” has occurred in a significant space of the field. The article first looks at exemplary rationalists for contrast, and then moves on to survey several leading affective theories: Donovan’s feminist care ethic, Acampora’s corporal compassion, Gruen’s entangled empathy, and Aaltola’s varieties of empathy. Aaltola’s criticisms of Acampora are reviewed and rebutted. Finally, the conclusion indicates what is positive about the contributions of affective theory to animal ethics.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2024-03-05 15:42:05
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/5098
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 2 (2023): Ethical Models for the Animal Question
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/5098/14663
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/5098/14665
Copyright (©) 2024 Ralph R Acampora
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/672
2019-04-11T08:07:01Z
Relations:SRC
"141111 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Living in Lucretius’ De rerum natura. Animals’ ataraxia and Humans’ Distress
Massaro, Alma
PhD, Università degli Studi di Genova
Array
In trying to comprehend the human role among other living beings from an antispeciesist point of view it is possible to look back to those thinkers who, far before our times, had already considered other living beings from a non-anthropocentric perspective. In this sense, a dialogue with the Ancients could be a useful way to identify a more solid ground on which to build a new relationship with the world of nature. For this reason in the following pages I suggest reading Lucretius’ De rerum natura giving emphasis to the role of animals in order to understand the poet’s pluralistic view. In the first part of my paper I will briefly focus on the poet’s own Epicureanism while, in the second part, I will address two notable passages of Lucretius’ poem – those of Iphigenia’s sacrifice and of the bereaved cow – where it emerges both the guilt of human beings, who are compromised by an impious religion (religio), and the correct devotion (the true pietas) of animals to the laws of nature. Eventually, as I will try to outline, Lucretius presents animals as models for human serenity and, as I will point out, he suggests that our opportunity to find happiness also depends upon them.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-29 10:08:51
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/672
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 2 (2014): Minding Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/672/1774
Copyright (©) 2018 Alma Massaro
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/3201
2023-01-25T16:04:00Z
Relations:SRC
"230123 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The “Cruel Absurdity” of Human Violence and Its Consequences. A Vegan Studies Analysis of a Pandemic Novel
Murray, Jessica
University of South Africa
Array
This article teases out what a Vegan Studies theoretical framework can offer a literary analysis of a selected pandemic novel, “The Fell” (2021), by Sarah Moss. Pandemic fiction accommodates texts from a wide range of genres, and these types of literary texts have seen a resurgence in the wake of the spread of the corona virus. While literary engagements with pandemics have often been relegated to the realms of dystopian science fiction, our current realities have shifted to such an extent that they can now comfortably be read alongside more realistic fictional representations of contemporary societies. The causal relationships between anthropocentric abuse of the environment in general and of animals in particular, and pandemics have been energetically contested in the media and in scholarly disciplinary fields ranging from Virology to Critical Animal Studies. The argument that I will develop is that Vegan Studies is a theoretical rubric with unique and salient generative capacity and that it allows for the emergence of fresh and necessary insights when we start unpacking how to make sense of pandemics through fiction. I will use Moss’s novel to anchor and illustrate my argument in favour of the value of Vegan Studies in these discussions.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-01-23 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/3201
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 2 (2022): Human Beings’ Moral Relations with Other Animals and the Natural Environment
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3201/11877
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3201/11878
Copyright (©) 2023 Jessica Murray
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1343
2023-01-24T11:06:08Z
Relations:SRC
"180726 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Renewable Energy Issues in Africa Contexts
Ibanga, Diana-Abasi
a. Centre for Environmental Governance and Resource Management, Nigeria.
b. Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar,
Cross River State, Nigeria. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4068-2520
Array
The relationship between energy and ethics is gaining attention in policy rooms around the world. How does one respond to the competing interests of the environment and posterity while also addressing the energy needs of the present human generation? In Western philosophy, this question is currently subject of debate and research. However, the African philosophical analysis that is required to address this concern is generally absent from discourse/literature on energy ethics. This article aims to bridge this gap, by providing broad analysis that has been lacking from the African context. In a way, it seeks to answer such questions already raised in Western philosophy but from African perspectives. This approach is significant given the fact that Western oriented energy humanities and energy ethics seem to be inappropriate or inadequate to understanding energy dynamics in the African context. Therefore, this paper aims to inform global debate and facilitate African-specific understanding of the complex nexus of human-environment-posterity by building the discourse on Braai filosofie. It discusses specific principles that can be deployed to address trade-offs between ethics and energy, thus providing guide to investment decisions on renewable energy projects in Africa.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-07-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1343
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 1 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1343/4861
Copyright (©) 2018 Diana-Abasi Ibanga
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2419
2022-02-10T14:16:28Z
Relations:SRC
"220202 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Beyond the Fairy Tale of The Shape of Water. Reimagining the Creature
Lankauskaitė, Viktorija
Kaunas University of Technology
Array
Guillermo del Toro’s “Shape of Water” (2017) has gained praise both from critics and audiences for its themes and storyline. In particular, a lot of creative and thematic weight is carried by the creature in the film – the Amphibian Man. As a character, it fits into the recent trend of morally positive and emotionally impactful monster representations, helping, among other things, to address the themes of acceptance and embracing of otherness. The aim of this paper is to explore the construction and portrayal of the Amphibian Man, and to take a closer look at the director’s approach towards reimagination of the creature in today’s landscape of cinema. The paper delves into del Toro’s work to define him as auteur, reflects on the traditions and changes in creature cinema, and examines the portrayal of the creature in terms of language, sound, and image.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-02-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2419
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 9, No 1-2 (2021): Animals: Freedom, Justice, Welfare, Moral Status, and Conflict Cases
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2419/9403
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2419/9404
Copyright (©) 2022 Viktorija Lankauskaitė
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1155
2023-01-24T11:04:25Z
Relations:SRC
"170605 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Respect for intergrity. How Christian animal ethics could inform EU legislation on farm animals
Massaro, Alma
PhD, Università degli Studi di Genova
Array
The present article is based on the assumption that consideration of non-human animals is an important element of an integral reading of Christian Scriptures. As several authors have suggested animals, as God’s creation, have intrinsic value and play an active part in the reconciliation process of the whole Earth. Such a reading of Scripture entails an interesting critique of the ways humans today relate to animals. Moving from this assumption, the present article will focus on EU legislation regarding farm animals, presenting the challenges following from its being mainly economically driven. The primary aim of this paper is, therefore, to show how Christian spirituality could help develop a new comprehensive ethics for living beings, beyond the paradigm of the human benefit; it will also suggest that Christian respect for integrity of creation could inform EU policy in a positive and more humane way regarding other animals.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-06-05 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1155
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 1 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1155/4084
Copyright (©) 2018 Alma Massaro
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/18
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"131113 2013 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Ethics for the Living World Alternative Methods and New Strategies for The Protection of Nonhuman Animals
Penco, Susanna
Department of Experimental Medicine (DIMES), University of Genoa, Italy
Ciliberti, Rosagemma
Associate Professor of Bioethics at the Science of Health Department (DISSAL), University of Genoa, Italy
Array
The use of animals in laboratories is a controversial issue involving much dispute between the researchers who support animal experimentation and those who are in favor of its abolishment. The former, whilst criticizing the emotional behavior of those who oppose it, consider experimentation on animals unavoidable, whereas the latter criticize animal experiments and the underlying logic as erroneous considering its methods unscientific and therefore misleading. This paper stems from the idea of researching into possible ways of developing or improving new alternative strategies for animal experimentation by finding adequate solutions beyond dogmatic opposition in the context of the current European Directive 2010/63/EU (the main reference point for the experimentation on animals) for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. More specifically the paper aims at offering the readers a working proposal, while duly respecting the protocol for the post mortem donation of their own corpses for the purposes of study and research. As we believe diseases need to be cured and not only treated, we are advocating post mortem studies on organs which could lead to the discovery of the causes of unknown etiological pathologies. The commitment to the implementation of constantly new and innovative alternatives concerning animal experimentation is right and proper, especially in the light of the enormous debt which the Italian National Bioethics Committee stated that mankind has towards nonhuman living beings.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-10 13:14:54
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/18
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 1, No 2 (2013): Inside the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/18/53
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/18/54
Copyright (©) 2018 Susanna Penco, Rosagemma Ciliberti
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2245
2023-03-27T10:38:25Z
Relations:SRC
"201111 2020 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Animalismo e non violenza. L’incidenza della lezione gandhiana sul pensiero di Tom Regan
Battaglia, Luisella
Array
Defence of Animals and Non-violence. The Impact of the Gandhian Lesson on Tom Regan’s Thinking
In opposition to the anthropocentric model of domination, in Gandhi as in Regan there is the full recovery of an ethical-philosophical tradition based on the model of kinship or fraternity and that insists on the possibility of extending the rules of justice to all living beings. The result of this perspective is the duty of vegetarianism and the radical opposition to any practice that treats animals as means at the service of human interests. But Gandhi’s lesson is particularly useful both to address the properly political issues arising from animal ethics, that are at the heart of Regan’s philosophy (starting with the debate on the nature and justification of animal rights theories and their possible inclusion in the political community), and to define the most appropriate non-violent fighting strategies for the achievement of the aims of animal rights defenders.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2020-11-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2245
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 7, No 1-2 (2019): The Respect Extended to Animals: Studies in Honor and in Memory of Tom Regan
eng
Copyright (©) 2020 Luisella Battaglia
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/992
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"160627 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Posthuman that Could Have Been: Mary Shelley’s Creature
Carretero González, Margarita
University of Granada / GIECO-Instituto Franklin
Array
At the very core of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Creature meets his maker, acquaints him – and, consequently, the reader – with the narrative of his miserable life, and entreats him to make a female companion with whom he can share his life. Although Victor admits to having been moved by the Creature’s eloquence and fine sensations, he reluctantly succumbs to his plea only to destroy the female before completing her, afraid that this new species might pose a threat to the survival of his own. In the encounter of these two species, however, only one seems to have truly “met” the other: the Creature has indeed become with his maker in a way that Victor fails. Given that the dominant narrative point of view up until that moment had been Victor’s, readers of the novel have the opportunity of having their ignorance enriched regarding the Creature straight from the Other’s mouth, this multiple narrative thus enabling them to take Victor’s creation as far more than the monster he sees. Indeed, I would argue that readers do “meet” the Creature while his creator cannot. Taking this central part of the novel as a starting point, this essay will explore the coexistence of transhuman and posthuman discourses in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, working mainly with the 1818 text. In expressing his desire to create an improved species, rendering “man invulnerable to any but a violent death”, Victor echoes the transhuman discourses of improvement of the human race, while remaining of this transitory stage, unable to make the transition to the posthuman phase which would grant humanness to his Creature, irrespective of his appearance. In failing to do so, I will explore whether he is also preventing the Creature to become truly posthuman.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-06-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/992
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 1 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/992/3402
Copyright (©) 2018 Margarita Carretero González
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1373
2023-01-24T11:06:08Z
Relations:SRC
"180726 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Mutually-Beneficial Renewable Energy Systems
Burke, Matthew J
Department of Natural Resource Sciences,
McGill University
Montreal, Québec - Canada
Array
Recognizing the present mass extinction of species and populations worldwide, considerable effort is underway to resolve tensions between achieving high levels of renewable energy development and protecting ecosystems and biodiversity. Moving beyond common mitigation measures designed to avoid or minimize adverse impacts, this paper takes a relational view of energy futures to explore the opportunities and implications of rethinking renewable energy systems as processes for restoration and healing of human-nature relationships. In a relational view, avoiding or minimizing harm is necessary but insufficient for establishing healthy enduring relationships based on mutual benefit between humans and nonhuman nature. The primary aim of the paper is to identify a set of practices for renewable energy technologies that support ecological enhancement through their deployment and use, as discovered through recent research and practice. The paper first presents the case for mutual benefit as a crucial principle for guiding renewable energy developments due to reasons of practice, ecology, ethics, and culture, and goes on to provide examples of mutually-beneficial energy development across a range of technologies. The study reveals options for renewable energy systems as a whole to be assembled, operated and repurposed for the co-benefit of humans and nonhuman nature.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-07-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1373
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 1 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1373/4968
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1373/4969
Copyright (©) 2018 Matthew J Burke
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/823
2018-10-17T08:06:32Z
Relations:SRC
"150511 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
If Natural Entities Have Intrinsic Value, Should We Then Abstain from Helping Animals Who Are Victims of Natural Processes?
Cunha, Luciano Carlos
Federal University of Santa Catarina - Brazil
Array
The idyllic view of nature is false: natural processes, given the prevalence of the reproductive strategy known as “r-selection”, tend to maximize the suffering of animals in nature. For the animals subjected to natural processes, disvalue overwhelmingly prevails over value. Any normative theory that directly considers sentient beings must recognize strong reasons to minimize such disvalue. Here, I will respond to a possible objection to this conclusion: that if non-sentient natural entities have intrinsic value, then our axiological evaluation of the situation of animals in nature must imply either that helping animals in nature is prohibited or that our reasons for helping them are considerably weak.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-05-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/823
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 1 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/823/2577
Copyright (©) 2018 Luciano Carlos Cunha
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/3170
2024-01-31T14:04:19Z
Relations:SRC
"230926 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Beyond Human-Wildlife Conflicts. Ameliorating Human/Nonhuman Animal Relationships through Workshops on Terminology
Yahya Haage, Gabriel
Array
Human-Wildlife Conflicts (HWCs) occur when nonhuman animals’ needs clash with those of humans. One recent effort regards shifting HWCs into Human-Human Social Conflicts, where conflicts are about humans disagreeing on how to deal with nonhuman animals. This method can help reduce guilt placed on nonhuman animals, but also robs them of their agency. Conversely, some in the field of biology seek to increase animal agency and their moral status, even making them key stakeholders. A helpful relationship may seek both aspects. Fourteen workshops (147 participants, 40 subgroups), with relevant stakeholders, were run on this topic. Participants were involved in biology and/or environmentalism and/or sustainability. They sought to develop terminology diminishing guilt in HWCs, while maintaining agency. Common themes were then brought out. Eight subgroups argued for more inclusive terms, like “sentient beings” and 21 argued for diminishing human/nature dichotomies. Both fit well with increasing agency, and giving nonhumans greater moral status, by narrowing human/nonhuman animal gaps. Participants also discussed nonhuman animals as “icons”, which 26/30 subgroups saw as, at least potentially, problematic, arguing it conceptually “freezes” species, ignoring their dynamism. In sum, the workshops aid in framing healthier relationships with the natural world.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-09-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/3170
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 1 (2023): The Importance of Language in the Relationships between Humans and Non-Humans
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3170/11812
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3170/11813
Copyright (©) 2023 Gabriel Yahya Haage
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/661
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"140616 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Mind the gap! Musicians challenging limits of birdsong knowledge
Heiter, Susanne
Array
When contemporary musicians work with animal sounds, they are often not only interested in the sound qualities but moreover in the animals’ musical capacities. In the works by Wolfgang Müller and David Rothenberg discussed in this text, distinct abilities of singing birds are demonstrated. Beyond the established knowledge about birdsong, the musicians propose a hitherto unthinkable participation of birds in cultural activities. These propositions become possible by a reflection of current scientific knowledge and its limitations. The artists explore a room of speculation set between references to scientific facts on the one hand and gaps in this knowledge on the other hand. This setup is constructed by individual arrangements that include not only genuinely musical parts, like sound or scores, but also paratextual elements like a booklet text or chapters of books which they published separately. In a first part these settings are described, to show how by interdependence of the various parts hypotheses emerge on specific musical capacities of the respective birds. The second part shows how these hypotheses are legitimated at paratextual levels by references to scientific and common knowledge. Thus a more general mechanism is elaborated concerning the fruitful utilisation of areas of uncertainty by artists in opposition to the interests of science.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2014-06-16 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/661
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 1 (2014): Minding Animals: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/661/1713
Copyright (©) 2018 Susanne Heiter
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2846
2022-07-20T08:35:01Z
Relations:SRC
"220713 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Ethology of the Freed Animal. Concept, Paradigm and Implementations to the Moral Status of Non-Human Animals
Celentano, Marco
University of Cassino
Martinelli, Dario
Kaunas University of Technology https://dariomartinelli.eu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2297-2308
Array
The essay focuses on the methodological and theoretical premises of an emerging research area with both ethological and (bio)ethical implications: the ethology of the freed animal (EFA). Unlike existing ethological fields, EFA does not focus on the observation of nonhuman (NH) animals in a natural condition of freedom, nor on situations of captivity. Rather, EFA consists of a comparative study of NH animals that are removed from a condition of captivity, from the status of “living tool” of human beings and from any form of exploitation – instead relocated in an environment fairly appropriate to their speciesspecific and individual characteristics. Ideal places for this study are animal sanctuaries and parks/reserves where a previously captive NH animal can be reintroduced in their natural habitat or, when this proves impossible, in a contest appropriate to their characteristics and needs. Even though EFA exists already, as a de facto practice of the personnel running sanctuaries and parks, the field still lacks a recognizable scholarly paradigm, and is not yet acknowledged at institutional/academic level, nor were its moral implications thoroughly discussed. Consequently, one important aim for such a field is the establishment of an active interaction between the two parties involved (researchers and sanctuaries/parks operators).
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-07-13 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2846
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 1 (2022): Animal Ethics, Ethology, and Food Ethics
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2846/10984
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2846/10985
Copyright (©) 2022 Dario Martinelli, Marco Celentano
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1258
2023-01-24T11:04:49Z
Relations:SRC
"171128 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Food Security. The Challenge of Nutrition in the New Century
Chiari, Nicholas
Array
The exponential growth of the world population (according to the FAO projections, it is expected to reach 9 billion people in 2050) and the urbanization (which will bring more than 60% of the population to live in the cities at the same date), combined with the marked improvement of income conditions of large sections of the populations of countries such as China and India, will result in a strong increase in individual demand for animal products. It is becoming increasingly difficult to satisfy the rising global demand for food in a sustainable manner (the most recent estimates tell us that about one billion people go hungry or are malnourished). Furthermore, a great number of factors contribute to uncertainty about the world’s ability to meet the food demand of an increasing population. For all that reasons, food security must be put on top of the policy agenda.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-11-28 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1258
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 2 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1258/4532
Copyright (©) 2018 Nicholas Chiari
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2468
2023-01-24T11:11:12Z
Relations:SRC
"210607 2021 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Is Skrei a Historical Norwegian Figure? The Nomadic Symbiosis of Fish and Humans in the Lofoten Islands
Papacharalampous, Nafsika
Array
This paper draws from short ethnographic fieldwork and collected oral histories in the Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway in 2019. In this paper I follow “skrei”, the Norwegian codfish (Gadus morhua). I explore what I call the “nomadic symbiosis” of islanders and skrei via their diachronic entanglements, as these appear in historical and present narratives, in changing ideas around economic development and progress, but also in the changes in the physical and political landscapes. These moments of connection, all challenge human-centric views arguing for skrei’s agency in cuisine-making, but also vis-à-vis identity-making, as skrei became recognized conjuring a newfound sense of belonging and becoming part of an imagined community within the Lofoten islands and beyond. I argue that these meaningful interactions create worlds that decenter human agency and revisit the notion of cuisine and nation-building processes as truly multispecies entanglements.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2021-06-07 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2468
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 8, No 1-2 (2020): Finding Agency in Nonhumans
eng
Copyright (©) 2021 Nafsika Papacharalampous
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1074
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"161117 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
From Anthropocentrism to Post-humanism in the Educational Debate
Ferrante, Alessandro
Department of Human Sciences R. Massa, University of Milano-Bicocca
Sartori, Daniele
School of Education, Kingston University London
Array
This paper explores the impact post-human stance has on the study of the learning process. It shows how this new paradigm which focuses upon the relationship between human and non-human modifies our understanding of education. First, we argue that the educational debate is largely inspired by an anthropocentric perspective. It is grounded in the notion of human self-determination and it neglects the role of non-human factors in the learner’s development. Furthermore, non-humans (both animals and machines) are usually considered as something to be used: in other words, they are instruments. This fact notwithstanding, there is a small minority of contemporary learning theories that investigate the relationship between human and non-human from a non-anthropocentric point of view. An overview of these theories is offered in the second part of the paper. Finally the use of Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in educational research will be explored to show one of the possible non-anthropocentric methods of conceiving and investigating the learning process. According to ANT, learning can be interpreted as the effect of a network made up of heterogeneous elements, both human and non-human.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-11-17 13:24:21
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1074
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 2 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1074/3760
Copyright (©) 2018 Alessandro Ferrante, Daniele Sartori
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/9
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Politics of Animal Rights Advocacy
Stallwood, Kim
Independent Scholar, Deputy Chief Executive, Minding Animals International and Co-founder and European Director, Animals and Society Institute
Array
The main aim of this paper is to make the case that the politics of animal rights advocacy rests with establishing the moral and legal status of animals as a public policy issue. Presently, animal rights is primarily framed as an optional lifestyle choice. It is not understood as a matter for mainstream politics, including public policy, the policies of political parties, regulations and legislation. Starting with Barbara Noske’s concept of the animal industrial complex, I consider the present status of the many traditions, cultural norms, economic and other incentives which license our instrumental use animals for human gain. I propose a five-part evaluation process of social movements and use it to evaluate the modern animal rights movement. I critique its present strategy with its emphasis on personal lifestyle choice as inadequate in challenging the animal industrial complex. I conclude the modern animal rights movement must implement a long-term strategy which advances animal issues as public policy, which is in addition to its present strategy promoting optional vegan, crueltyfree lifestyle choice.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2013-06-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/9
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 1, No 1 (2013): Inside the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals: Part I
eng
Copyright (©) 2018 Kim Stallwood
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1617
2023-01-24T11:07:45Z
Relations:SRC
"181127 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Energy Ethics: a Literature Review
Frigo, Giovanni
Department of philosophy
Northern Michigan University
Marquette, MI - USA http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3121-2773
Array
This article is intended as a broad review of contributions from the humanities and social sciences to the theme of energy ethics. Although not exahustive and (unfortunately) limited to the English-speaking world, it surveys, describes and discusses several past and recent books and articles as well as interdisicplinary projects and conferences that are relevant to energy ethics broadly construed. The primary goals of this literature review are to provide some orientation to the readers of this Special Issue (vol. 6.1 and 6.2) and to stimulate more dialog, creativity and intellectual engagements concerning the emerging field of energy ethics.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-11-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1617
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 2 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1617/5908
Copyright (©) 2018 Giovanni Frigo
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/882
2019-04-11T08:13:57Z
Relations:SRC
"151102 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Refusing Help and Inflicting Harm. A Critique of the Environmentalist View
Paez, Eze
Pompeu Fabra University
Array
Due to a variety of natural causes, suffering predominates over well-being in the lives of wild animals. From an antispeciesist standpoint that considers the interests of all sentient individuals, we should intervene in nature to benefit these animals, provided that the expectable result is net positive. However, according to the environmentalist view the aim of benefiting wild animals cannot justify intervening in nature. In addition, harmful human interventions can sometimes be justified. This view assumes that (i) certain entities such as ecosystems or species have intrinsic value, and that (ii) at least sometimes these values are more important than nonhuman well-being. In this article I review the arguments in support of this view advanced by three prominent environmentalists (Albert Schweitzer, Paul W. Taylor and J. Baird Callicott) and show how none of them succeed at grounding these assumptions.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-11-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/882
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 2 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/882/2883
Copyright (©) 2018 Eze Paez
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/4996
2024-03-06T00:59:52Z
Relations:SRC
"240305 2024 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Animal Ethics and the Problem of Direct Conflict: Why Current Theories Can’t Offer Solutions
Turner, Carla
University of Fort Hare
Array
ABSTRACT
Contemporary theories on animal ethics, particularly utilitarian and deontological accounts, can provide clear answers to questions of how animals should be considered ethically when humans and animals have different interests at stake. However, both accounts are unable to provide solutions in cases where both parties have a similar basic interest at stake; for example in direct, unavoidable conflicts for the same food, land or resources, seen when elephants destroy crops, baboons raid farms etc. By exploring Singer’s utilitarian view and Regan’s deontological accounts in detail, I will demonstrate that these approaches cannot solve conflicts of this kind since both parties are weighted equally. This will serve to highlight the importance of reconceptualising animal ethics in terms of an ethically relevant quality that can be held in degrees, and that an individual can have more or less of.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2024-03-05 15:42:05
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/4996
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 2 (2023): Ethical Models for the Animal Question
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/4996/14414
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/4996/14415
Copyright (©) 2024 Carla Turner
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/673
2019-04-11T07:56:32Z
Relations:SRC
"141111 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
“Low down Dirty Rat”: Popular and Moral Responses to Possums and Rats in Melbourne
O’Sullivan, Siobhan
Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne
Creed, Barbara
Professor of Screen Studies in the School of Culture & Communication at the University of Melbourne
Gray, Jenny
Array
Possums and rats are both found in large numbers in the city of Melbourne, Australia. The two species share much in common, including an ability to flourish among humans and a predisposition for building nests in houses and eating food and plants intended for humans. Yet despite numerous similarities possums and rats are afforded strikingly different levels of protection before the law. The death of a possum must be justified and carried out painlessly. The same does not apply to rats, who may be exterminated freely and in ways that are painful. Considered from the perspective of the principle of “unnecessary suffering” we find that such inconsistent treatment is difficult to justify. We find that the rat’s historical association with disease may account for some of our animosity towards the species. Popular culture, which accords favorable treatment to possums and adopts contradictory attitudes to rats, appears to influence our attitudes in important ways. Our study does not demonstrate one way or the other whether rats are often used to represent undesirable characteristics because many humans have an aversion to them, or whether we have an aversion to them because of the cultural messages that encourage us to perceive of rats as abject. Rather, our conclusion is that human cruelty to animals is contradictory and irrational and that when another species potentially threatens human lives and human self-interest we react brutally and without due consideration.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-29 10:08:51
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/673
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 2 (2014): Minding Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/673/1779
Copyright (©) 2018 Siobhan O’Sullivan, Barbara Creed, Jenny Gray
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/3232
2023-01-25T16:04:00Z
Relations:SRC
"230123 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Duality of Abuse and Care. Empathy in Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants
Bala, Moumita
Indian Institute of Technology Patna https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9177-6618 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9177-6618
Singh, Smriti
Indian Institute of Technology Patna https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1829-5906 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1829-5906
Array
In an era of Anthropocene, habitat loss and species extinction due to anthropogenic factors, and the upsurge in animal exploitation force us to reconsider the “animal question” and relationships between humans and animals. All forms of animal abuse violate the subjectivity of the animals by othering them as objects who are mercilessly exploited. Purportedly influenced by the social consciousness of the moral rights of animals and the animal advocacy movement, Sara Gruen’s novel “Water for Elephants” (2006), exposes the horrible reality of animals being mistreated for entertainment in the circus industry through a fictitious description of the events in the Benzini Brothers’ Shows. The framework of this research is based on two arguments: the crucial link between human insensitivity or empathy erosion and animal abuse; and the significance of empathy, in particular, “entangled empathy”, in acknowledging animals as moral subjects, taking care of them, and creating the harmonious human-animal relationship in the novel.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-01-23 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/3232
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 2 (2022): Human Beings’ Moral Relations with Other Animals and the Natural Environment
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3232/11966
Copyright (©) 2023 Moumita Bala, Smriti Singh
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1341
2023-01-24T11:06:08Z
Relations:SRC
"180726 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Life Within Energy Policy
Bethem, Jacob
Ph.D. Student
School of Sustainability Arizona State University Tempe, AZ - USA
Array
The “sacredness of life” is foundational to environmentalism, and “being alive” is the fundamental criterion for moral considerability. It is also recognized by some philosophers that well-being is often only assessing the individual in a vacuum, neglecting the moral component of impact to other lives (both human and nonhuman). In this way, the “value of life” bridges these related philosophies and provides theoretical support for decisions of social and environmental sustainability where lives are impacted, such as in the energy field. So, we ought to be explicit about those impacts if we are concerned about the morality of policies. Too often taken for granted, “life” is powerful – like no other term, it is immediately referring to two ends of a causal chain – our choices impact lives. To the extent that someone does not consent to a threat to being alive, we should do everything in our power to comply. With transparent, engaged, and inclusive discussions, informed by full life cycle analyses, we can not only protect fundamental rights of the least well-off but also can plan an energy transition that helps everyone to flourish. The case of the Navajo Generating Station illustrates impacts on real lives.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-07-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1341
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 1 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1341/4854
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1341/4855
Copyright (©) 2018 Jacob Bethem
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2212
2023-03-27T10:36:06Z
Relations:SRC
"220202 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Max Scheler e la possibilità di una nuova forma di antispecismo
Giannetto, Enrico R. A. Calogero
Università di Bergamo
Array
Max Scheler and the Possibility of a New Form of Antispeciesism
This article presents the ethical thought of Max Scheler, beyond its anthropocentric specificity, as a possible basis for the philosophical elaboration of an anti-speciesist ethical phenomenology, of Christian origin, which in turn presupposes for the self-understanding of our human existence a vegan and anti-speciesist ethical praxis, as a concrete form of active love as care for every life.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-02-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2212
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 9, No 1-2 (2021): Animals: Freedom, Justice, Welfare, Moral Status, and Conflict Cases
eng
Copyright (©) 2022 Enrico R. A. Calogero Giannetto
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1157
2023-01-24T11:04:25Z
Relations:SRC
"170605 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Livestock production to feed the planet. Animal Protein: A Forecast of Global Demand Over the Next Years
Baldi, Antonella
Gottardo, Davide
Array
The world population will significantly increase by 2050, from the current seven million to more than nine million inhabitants and the highest rate of increase is expected in developing countries. The demand for animal products will follow the population growth and increase between 50 and 70%, although with differences between all regions. According nutritional recommendations, at least one third of the daily protein requirement should derived from animal proteins. Meat, fish, milk or eggs, rich essential amino acids, micronutrients and vitamins, should provide about 20g of 60g of total protein; however, the current level of intake should be reduced. In the next future, livestock sector will increase the productivity, without compromising the quality and the nutritional safety of the products, as well as the environmental protection and animal welfare. Considering the future population growth and the future food demand, different environmental implications on land use, natural non-renewable resources such as water, fossil fuels, minerals and agricultural land, and on the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions should also be taken into consideration. Farming edible insect could be a possible solution to overcome the future population growth, the global demand for food, specifically for protein sources and the food waste reduction.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-06-05 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1157
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 1 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1157/4099
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1157/4100
Copyright (©) 2018 Antonella Baldi, Davide Gottardo
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/658
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"140616 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Animal Deaths on Screen: Film & Ethics
Creed, Barbara
Professor of Screen Studies in the School of Culture & Communication at the University of Melbourne
Array
Do animals understand death? How does the cinema represent death? The concept of death has played a crucial role in anthropocentric discussions of the representation of human/animal relationships in cultural practices. This paper will explore the representation of animals and death in the cinema from its beginnings to the present in relation to questions of ethics, and the cinematic representation of human/animal intersubjectivity. It will argue that while some individual filmmakers have attempted to represent animal death ethically, this topic remains largely unexamined in theoretical writings on the cinema. This paper will suggest that the spectator frequently seeks ways to displace fears about the death process onto the animal and images of animal death. Finally, I will argue that the space created between spectator and the image of actual animal death on screen is an ethical space that gives rise to a creaturely gaze with the potential to break down boundaries, and to affirm communicability between human and non-human animals in a non-anthropocentric context.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2014-06-16 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/658
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 1 (2014): Minding Animals: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/658/1689
Copyright (©) 2018 Barbara Creed
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2462
2023-01-24T11:11:12Z
Relations:SRC
"210607 2021 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Conceptualizing Robotic Agency. Social Robots in Elder Care in Contemporary Japan
Aronsson, Anne
Holm, Fynn
Array
Japan is a hyper-aging society, and its government is encouraging robotic solutions to address elder care labor shortage. Therefore, authorities have adopted an agenda of introducing social robots. However, increasing numbers of people in Japan are becoming emotionally attached to anthropomorphic machines, and their introduction into elder care may thus be perceived as contentious. By exploring human engagement with social robots in the care context, this paper argues that rapid technological advances in the twenty-first century will see robots achieve some level of agency, contributing to human society by carving out unique roles for themselves and by bonding with humans. Nevertheless, the questions remain of whether there should be a difference between humans attributing agency to a being and those beings having the inherent ability to produce agency and how we might understand that difference if unable to access the minds of other humans, let alone nonhumans, some of which are not even alive in the classical sense. Using the example of an interaction between an elderly woman and a social robot, we engage with these questions; discuss linguistic, attributed, and inherent agencies; and suggest that a processual type of agency might be most appropriate for understanding human-robot interaction.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2021-06-07 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2462
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 8, No 1-2 (2020): Finding Agency in Nonhumans
eng
Copyright (©) 2021 Anne Aronsson, Fynn Holm
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/993
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"160627 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Gadda’s Pasticciaccio and the Knotted Posthuman Household
Amberson, Deborah
Associate Professor of Italian, University of Florida
Past, Elena
Associate Professor of Italian, Wayne State University
Array
The celebrated final scenes of Carlo Emilio Gadda’s novel, “Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana”, find detective Ingravallo pursuing a clue as he investigates the brutal murder of Liliana Balducci, an upper-middle-class inhabitant of an apartment on the street of the novel’s title. The location for the book’s concluding showdown is a dilapidated house, or an “oikos”, to borrow from the Greek, into which the Investigator, an outsider, is introduced. “Oikos”, which became the prefix “eco” in both “economics” (literally, law of the house) and “ecology” (or, study of the house) here provides a dynamic lens for the final scenes of the Pasticciaccio, and for viewing its unremitting tension between singularity and generality, interiority and exteriority, anthropic and geological time, human and posthuman. Our article proposes the space of the impoverished Roman household as a key to entering the Gaddian narrative architecture, a space that resonates with what Jeffery Jerome Cohen describes as “the tangled, fecund, and irregular pluriverse humans inhabit along with lively and agency-filled objects, materials, and forces” (Prismatic Ecology, xxiii). The dwelling on Via Merulana, and even more distinctly the house (or hovel) in which the novel ends, challenge our notions of domestic spaces, their porosity, and their proper inhabitants. In fact, in the narrative’s exploration of these two houses and their occupants, we find intriguing portraits of the tensions that trouble the supposed borders of the human and the posthuman. The “Pasticciaccio”, as we argue, closes (or opens) the door on a narrative architecture of polarity, where material and ontological tensions lead to both human and posthuman conclusions.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-06-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/993
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 1 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/993/3409
Copyright (©) 2018 Deborah Amberson, Elena Past
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1398
2023-01-24T11:07:45Z
Relations:SRC
"181127 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Coal Feeds My Family: Subsistence, Energy, and Industry in Central Appalachia
Aloi, M. Joseph
University of North Texas
Array
Across Central Appalachia, you can see the message scrawled across bumper stickers, protest signs, and billboards: “Coal Feeds My Family”. The metaphor of coal feeding families is one that stresses the economic importance of this extractive industry to the economy of the industrialized rural mountain South. This essay examines the change in land-human relationships through the lens of food. A contrast is drawn between homesteading’s cultivation of life and coal’s energy economy of the dead. The energy economy of the preindustrial Appalachian farm is shown to be a slight alteration from the energy cycles of the Appalachian forest. The industrial energy economy of coal, on the other hand, severed Appalachian people from their traditional agricultural energy economy, from the results of their production, from the sources of their consumption, and from the very thing, the sun, which made the preindustrial economy possible. The coal energy economy was not only made possible through various technological innovations in production and consumption, but also by certain social relations and political structures. These relations and structures remain relatively intact, in spite of the rapid disintegration of the coal economy, and their inertia explains the popularity of the slogan “Coal Feeds My Family”.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-11-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1398
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 2 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1398/5916
Copyright (©) 2018 M. Joseph Aloi
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/824
2018-10-17T08:06:32Z
Relations:SRC
"150511 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Case for Intervention in Nature on Behalf of Animals: a Critical Review of the Main Arguments against Intervention
Torres, Mikel
University of the Basque
Array
If we assume that all sentient animals deserve equal moral consideration and, therefore, that their interests are morally relevant, what should be our attitude regarding natural phenomena like predation or starvation which are harmful for many wild animals? Do we have the prima facie moral obligation to try to mitigate unnecessary, avoidable and unjustified animal suffering in nature? In this paper I assume two main theses: (1) Humans and (many) animals deserve equal moral consideration; this implies that (2) We have the prima facie moral obligation to try to mitigate unnecessary, avoidable and unjustified animal suffering. Based on these assumptions, I argue that we are morally obligated to aid animals in the wild whenever doing so would not originate as much or more suffering than it would prevent.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-05-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/824
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 1 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/824/2584
Copyright (©) 2018 Mikel Torres
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/4533
2024-01-31T14:04:19Z
Relations:SRC
"230926 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Animal Derogation and Anthropocentric Language. An Ecofeminist Reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer
Ahmad, Sajad
Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Lucknow Campus, Lucknow (UP) India
Yaqub, Huma
Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Lucknow Campus, Lucknow (UP) India
Array
The theory of ecofeminism is all about drawing comparisons and connections between old as well as new forms of oppressions against women and the environment and it fights against all forms of injustices to make earth a better place to live. Animal liberation theorists not only highlight animal abuse through hunting, caging, butchering, testing, and experimenting but they are of the opinion that animals are abused and derogated through the patriarchal language as well. In this regard, this paper attempts to explore the anthropocentric use of language in Barbara Kingsolver’s “Prodigal Summer” so as to discuss the way the author highlights animal devaluation and depreciation in terms of language. Kingsolver draws readers’ attention towards animal devaluation through various tropes (mostly similes) to highlight animal abuse in her ecofeminist text. The paper will examine the ways in which characters derogate each other through association with different animals and birds and show how the use of language plays a great role in the devaluation and derogation of nonhuman world.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-09-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/4533
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 1 (2023): The Importance of Language in the Relationships between Humans and Non-Humans
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/4533/13718
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/4533/13719
Copyright (©) 2023 Sajad Ahmad, Huma Yaqub
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/662
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"140616 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
A clinical perspective on ‘theory of mind’, empathy and altruism: the hypothesis of somasia
Le Bot, Jean-Michel
Array
The article starts by recalling the results of recent experiments that have revealed that, to a certain extent, the “ability to simultaneously distinguish between different possible perspectives on the same situation” (Decety and Lamm 2007) exists in chimpanzees. It then describes a case study of spatial and temporal disorientation in a young man following a cerebral lesion in order to introduce the hypothesis that this ability is based on a specific process of somasia. By permitting self-other awareness, this process also provides subjects with anchor points in time and space from which they can perform the mental decentring that enables them to adopt various perspectives. This process seems to be shared by humans and certain animal species and appears to be subdivided into the processing of the identity of experienced situations, on the one hand, and of their unity on the other. The article concludes with a critique of overly reflexive and “representational” conceptions of theory of mind which do not distinguish adequately between the ability to “theorise” about the mental states of others and the self-other awareness ability (which is automatic and non-reflexive).
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2014-06-16 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/662
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 1 (2014): Minding Animals: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/662/1720
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/662/1721
Copyright (©) 2018 Jean-Michel Le Bot
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2881
2023-03-27T10:34:19Z
Relations:SRC
"220713 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Il dilemma etico dei pet. Tra bestie, animali e persone
Andreozzi, Matteo
Università degli Studi di Milano http://www.matteoandreozzi.it
Array
The Ethical Dilemma of Pets. Between Beasts, Animals, and Persons
The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the need to discuss the moral status of pets, showing how this can even offer an opportunity to rethink the entire set of relationships between humans and non-human nature. I start by asking “who” or “what” pets are and why they should be treated morally different from other “beasts”. I also show how both anthropocentric and animal ethics are unable to solve the dilemma. In conclusion, I explore two possible coordinates to use in order to solve the dilemma: “interest” and “appropriate relational partiality”. I claim that these two key concepts could also be useful to show the need to find a mutual theoretical and conceptual framework toward which both anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric environmental ethics could refer.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-07-13 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2881
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 1 (2022): Animal Ethics, Ethology, and Food Ethics
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2881/11110
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2881/11111
Copyright (©) 2022 Matteo Andreozzi
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1257
2023-01-24T11:04:49Z
Relations:SRC
"171128 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Care and Nutrition: Ethical Issues. Exploring the Moral Nexus between Caring and Eating through Natural History, Anthropology and the Ethics of Care
Fürst, Maurizio
Array
The way in which human beings eat is quite revealing of the kind of moral beings that they are. This sheds a light on how non-human animals eat as well as behave in activities regarding food. Every mammal at some moment of its life depends on someone else to be fed. Such activities involving food are universal and natural forms of caring. In these situations, social relationships between individuals are defined or reinforced. Thus, actions that involve sharing and caring can easily be seen as moral ones. At the same time, however, since meals are natural and ordinary that it is very difficult to view them as moments of immorality. Forms of injustice and domination over other genders, ethnic or social groups as well as over other species rest in the small and apparently inoffensive choices and gestures of everyday meals.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-11-28 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1257
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 2 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1257/4529
Copyright (©) 2018 Maurizio Fürst
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2469
2023-01-24T11:11:12Z
Relations:SRC
"210607 2021 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
“Agents of Description”. Animals, Affect, and Care in Thalia Field’s Experimental Animals: A Reality Fiction (2016)
Lambert, Shannon
Array
In this article, I explore questions of laboratory animal agency in dialogue with Thalia Field’s literary text “Experimental Animals: A Reality Fiction” (2016). Using the framework of “care” (understood, following María Puig de la Bellacasa 2017, as a multi-dimensional concept comprising affect, ethics, and practice), I consider how Field’s synaesthetic descriptions of animal suffering create an affective response in readers, alerting them to a shared carnal vulnerability. Indeed, rather than anthropomorphizing animals through narration or focalization, Field “stays with the body” to consider how animals call to us not as experimental objects, but as ethical subjects, how they become – in other words – agents of the description (Stewart 2016). To develop this idea, I introduce the “practiced” dimension of care. More specifically, I explore how Field uses narrative strategies like first-person narration and second-person address, “bridge characters” (James 2019), and juxtaposition to morally structure the text and encourage “transspecies alliances” between readers and represented animals. I argue that such devices direct and train affect, allowing us to better appreciate how conceptions of nonhuman animal agency are always contextualized within particular sets of social, cultural, historical, and disciplinary frames and practices.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2021-06-07 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2469
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 8, No 1-2 (2020): Finding Agency in Nonhumans
eng
Copyright (©) 2021 Shannon Lambert
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1075
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"161117 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Senseless Distributions: Posthumanist Antidotes to the Mass Hermit
Sisto, Davide
University of Turin
Array
This essay aims at showing how the “mass hermit”, as defined by Günther Anders, is the logical point of arrival of that philosophical process which has interpreted human subjectivity as a closed system, intended as the sum of two mechanically overlapped parts: a biological-natural one and a psychological-intellectual one. This figure is counterposed with a subject who is “always already somewhere else, trapped in a senseless distribution”, as defined by Jean Baudrillard. A subject who is intended as a “living circuit” (cf. Schelling), a multi-identity that – like with dissipative structures – is regulated by the dialectical relationship between order and chaos. This essay aims at comparing these two human figures, showing how the philosophical fruitfulness of the second figure can be ascribed to its ontological hybridization with what is not human, beyond any unproductive anthropocentric conception of humanity.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-11-17 13:24:21
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1075
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 2 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1075/3767
Copyright (©) 2018 Davide Sisto
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/15
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"131113 2013 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
On Others’ Emotions, and Ours. A Reflection on Narratives, Categories, and Heuristic Devices
Tonutti, Sabrina
PhD, Lecturer and Researcher in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Udine, Italy
Array
This article reflects on some epistemological and methodological tenets of cultural anthropology such as the informants’ role in ethnographical research, the relation between collective phenomena and individuals, and that between case studies (individual level) and abstraction (generalization). These tenets will be addressed focusing on the lack of recognition of animals’ individuality and agency in social relations, and on the related humans/animals opposition. With the topic of the emotional lives of animals as a starting point, the essay sets out to reflect on how the narratives we use to interpret and describe them inform our enquiry within an anthropocentric and essentialist view, consequently biasing our understanding of diversity.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-10 13:14:54
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/15
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 1, No 2 (2013): Inside the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/15/34
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/15/35
Copyright (©) 2018 Sabrina Tonutti
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2173
2023-03-27T10:37:09Z
Relations:SRC
"201111 2020 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Verso i diritti degli animali. Riflessioni e dibattiti nella storia del pensiero
Baricalla, Vilma
Istituto italiano di Bioetica
Array
Towards Animal Rights. Reflections and Debates in the History of Thought
In our cultural tradition, a conception has prevailed that has supported the inferiority of animals, justifying their exploitation and their exclusion from the moral sphere. This vision, however, at various moments in history has been the subject of criticism and disputes. There are alternative voices and strands that departed from the traditional anthropocentric paradigm, rehabilitating animals and elaborating different models of interpretation of the world. This paper presents an overview of authors who – from the ancient world to the modern age up to almost the present day – made their voice heard in defence of animals, to whom they recognized value and dignity. The picture that emerges is varied and articulated and represents the rich background of contemporary theories of respect for animals and animal rights.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2020-11-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2173
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 7, No 1-2 (2019): The Respect Extended to Animals: Studies in Honor and in Memory of Tom Regan
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2173/8337
Copyright (©) 2020 Vilma Baricalla
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/883
2018-10-17T08:06:32Z
Relations:SRC
"151102 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Relations and Moral Obligations towards Other Animals
Sözmen, Beril
Array
Relational accounts acknowledge and emphasise the intersubjective nature of selfhood and argue that focusing solely on the capacities of animals cannot account for all moral obligations towards them. My argument is concerned with the move from the premise of intersubjectivity to differential positive duties. Relationality here functions as a means of differentiating and refining our positive duties towards some animals, but this refinement often also functions as an exclusion of others, e.g. in the differential treatment of domesticated and wild animals. A similar danger lies in diminishing human moral obligation by arguing for accepting some cases of suffering and death as unavoidable tragedies. I argue that the debate about the nature and scope of our relational duties towards other animals can profit from the relational ethics of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas. Buber and Levinas develop relational accounts, in which the fundamental ethical element is not knowledge of the capacities of the other but rather the encounter, out of which moral selfhood emerges. By applying Buber and Levinas we can refine the way relationality is used in animal ethics today without dismissing our positive duties towards individual animals, in the wild or otherwise.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-11-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/883
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 2 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/883/2890
Copyright (©) 2018 Beril Sözmen
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/5375
2024-03-06T00:59:52Z
Relations:SRC
"240305 2024 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Advocating for a Political Vegan Feminism: A Rebuttal to Val Plumwood and Donna Haraway’s Criticisms of Ethical Veganism
Feltrin, Andrea Natan
University of North Texas https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8475-0906
Array
ABSTRACT
This paper highlights the vital connection between intersectional ecofeminism and veganism as profound ethical and political practices. It critically engages with the ideas of feminist philosophers Val Plumwood and Donna Haraway, revealing how their contributions, while significant in critical animal studies and ecological philosophies, inadvertently allow continued exploitation of non-human animals, especially for food. Drawing from neo-materialist feminism and recent
developments in political veganism, this paper underscores the ethical and ecological imperatives for an intersectional and radical veganism. This approach seeks to deconstruct biopolitical structures upholding non-human oppression, envisioning liberation for sentient beings and ecological restoration. It argues that the boundaries between ecofeminism, veganism, and multispecies justice should blur to dismantle systems rooted in human exceptionalism and ensure non-human animals are not treated as mere tools. In conclusion, this paper advocates for a holistic approach to non-human liberation, emphasizing the urgent need to strengthen the bonds between ecofeminism and veganism. This union challenges prevailing biopolitical systems and paves the way forgenuine liberation for all sentient beings, both human and non-human.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2024-03-05 15:42:05
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/5375
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 2 (2023): Ethical Models for the Animal Question
eng
Copyright (©) 2024 Andrea Natan Feltrin
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/674
2018-11-28T11:57:11Z
Relations:SRC
"141111 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Animal Perceptions in Animal Transport Regulations in the EU and in Finland
Ratamäki, Outi
PhD, University of Eastern Finland, Philosophical Faculty, School of Humanities, Joensuu, Finland and Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Environmental Policy Centre, Environmental Governance Studies Unit, Joensuu, Finland
Array
The long-distance transportation of horses to slaughter has been strongly criticized in various political arenas: in Europe there is now a campaign underway to end transportation that takes over 8 hours. This debate is investigated here by means of a case study. The research data consists of regulatory texts used in the EU and in Finland. These texts are analyzed initially according to their contents, that is, a content analysis, designed to find out how and in which connections the animal is conceptualized. This analysis is then amplified by means of critical discourse analysis to discover the kinds of discourse that are most powerful and stabilized, and also to reveal their institutional origins. The results show that there is a strong difference between market-driven and animal-centric interpretations of unnecessary suffering. It is also evident that pressure has been growing in favour of the animal-centric perspective on the part of both animal welfare NGOs and of citizens. Nevertheless, it has been observed that the fields of science that could offer expertise on the issue have been poorly utilized in the process of devising policies.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-29 10:08:51
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/674
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 2 (2014): Minding Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/674/1784
Copyright (©) 2018 Outi Ratamäki
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2879
2023-03-27T10:32:53Z
Relations:SRC
"230123 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Immanuel Kant e l’etica ambientale. Tre proposte per rivisitare (e una per riattualizzare) la morale kantiana
Andreozzi, Matteo
Indipendent Researcher http://www.matteoandreozzi.it
Array
Immanuel Kant and Environmental Ethics. Three Proposals to Revisit (and One to Re-actualize) Kantian Morality
The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate that in order to claim that Kant’s ethics is neither speciesist nor anthropocentric there is no need to reinterpret Kant’s theories pushing them over their anthroposcopism. I start by exploring the most relevant references to non-human animals and nature in Kant’s moral theory. Then I highlight the main reasons behind the critics of speciesism and anthropocentrism often referred to Kant’s philosophy. I show how non-anthropocentric environmental ethics reinterpretations of Kant’s moral theory offered by Christine Korsgaard, Sharon Anderson-Gold e Marc Lucht reply to the critics. In conclusion, I claim that staying with Kant’s anthroposcopism and formal approach to moral ethics could be enough to provide a stronger theoretical framework for an already widespread and widely accepted weak anthropocentric reformist environmental ethics.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-01-23 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2879
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 2 (2022): Human Beings’ Moral Relations with Other Animals and the Natural Environment
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2879/11104
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2879/11105
Copyright (©) 2023 Matteo Andreozzi
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1340
2023-01-24T11:07:45Z
Relations:SRC
"181127 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Ethical Risk and Energy
Rossert, Bertrand Andre
Adviser to the Vice President and Chief Ethics Officer at World Bank Group
Policies, Knowledge Management and Partnerships
Ethics and Business Conduct Vice-Presidency
Washington, District of Columbia - USA
Array
Defining ethical violations as acts or situations excluding individuals from choices, and ethical deterioration as an increase in intensity or number of ethical violations, the ethical risk is defined as the risk of ethical deterioration. Ethical deteriorations and improvements often coexist and share the same causes, and the net ethical impact is often difficult and controversial to assess. In the energy sector, the ethical risk appears to have five key determinants: (i) personal accountability, i.e. our responsibility in decisions and actions; (ii) fairness, i.e. the consequence on the choices of others; (iii) usage, i.e. the impact on the social and natural environment; (iv) addiction, i.e. the dependence that is created as energy is used over time and (v) danger, i.e. how the force of energy sources can be unexpectedly unleashed and what effort is made to mitigate these.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-11-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1340
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 2 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1340/4849
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1340/4850
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1340/4852
Copyright (©) 2018 Bertrand Andre Rossert
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2119
2022-02-10T14:16:28Z
Relations:SRC
"220202 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Distributive Justice and Animal Welfare
Morreale, Paola
Array
Besides the focus on the various approaches developed until now within animal ethics, perhaps it would be interesting to consider also what ethical theories have ruled out any moral concern for the interests of non-human beings. This article aims to rise some questions about the exclusion of (sentient) animals in the philosophical debates on distributive justice. The introduction briefly provides an overview on the current debate on distributive justice. The author focuses on those theories that adopt welfare as the currency of distribution (so-called “welfare ethics”), underlining how there seem to be a contradiction between the theory of value they rely on and their approach, exclusively focused on humans. The essay analyses the main issues related to the inclusion of animals in welfare ethics, i.e. (a) the alleged incommensurability between human and animal welfare, and (b) the “problematic conclusion”. The paper sketches a hypothesis of research to solve the “inter-species wellbeing comparisons” issue by proposing a model based on species-typical potentialities. Then, it tries to address the problem of demandingness by suggesting a sympathy-based foundation of welfare ethics. The last section singles out the moral issue of laboratory animals as an appropriate field of application for a welfarist approach.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-02-02 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2119
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 9, No 1-2 (2021): Animals: Freedom, Justice, Welfare, Moral Status, and Conflict Cases
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2119/8123
Copyright (©) 2022 Paola Morreale
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1158
2023-01-24T11:04:25Z
Relations:SRC
"170605 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Philosophy of Nutrition. A Historical, Existential, Phenomenological Perspective
Giannetto, Enrico R. A. Calogero
Array
The paper develops a philosophy of nutrition, based on the idea that nutrition is the fundamental condition of possibility of the existence: being presupposes eating. Eating meat historically presupposes preying, hunting or fishing, that is killing other animals. This violence is at the roots of our civilisation: it transformed human way of life, human way of being. Violence over other species then spreads as violence at the level of the same human, social, relationships. Violence over other species has been called “work” and now the division of work allows the majority of individuals for a life without preying and without violence and so for spreading a new way of thinking and feeling, a new way of living. A new antispeciesist ethics become possible, based on a vegan style of living.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-06-05 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1158
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 1 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1158/4107
Copyright (©) 2018 Enrico R. A. Calogero Giannetto
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/657
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"140616 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Multi-dimensional Donkey in Landscapes of Donkey-Human Interaction
Blakeway, Stephen
Director of International Operations, The Donkey Sanctuary, Sidmouth, EX10 0NU, UK
Array
The purpose of this article is to spark interest and raise awareness about donkeys and their lives; and ultimately to help develop a worldwide network for donkey (animal) welfare and shape a more humane world. It aims to encourage greater collaboration between academics involved with animal studies, animal geographies and similar related disciplines, and those involved practically with the welfare of donkeys and mules around the world. It outlines the idea of a multi-dimensional landscape of donkey-human interaction to help us understand the complexity of factors shaping the place of donkeys in the world, and to provide a framework for practical engagement with donkeys and their users around the world. Through its case studies, it describes some lives lived by donkeys. And finally, written from the perspective of a British donkey welfare charity, The Donkey Sanctuary, it outlines an approach to assessing working donkey welfare building from a simple five-point welfare assessment tool; and it illustrates something of that work to bring about long-term improvements in donkey welfare.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2014-06-16 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/657
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 1 (2014): Minding Animals: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/657/1677
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/657/1678
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/657/1679
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/657/1680
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/657/1681
Copyright (©) 2018 Stephen Blakeway
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2465
2023-01-24T11:11:12Z
Relations:SRC
"210607 2021 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
“Its Hand around My Throat”. The Social Rendering of Borrelia
Soncco, Ritti
Array
This paper builds on biomedical and anthropological discourses of microbial agency to explore the important opportunities this discourse offers medicine, politics, anthropology, and patients. “Borrelia burgdorferi”, often termed “the Great Imitator”, is an ideal candidate for this discussion as it reveals how difficult it is to speak about Lyme disease without engaging with microbial agency. Based on 12-months research with Lyme disease patients and clinicians in Scotland, this paper offers a social rendering of the bacteria that reveals epistemologies of illness not available in medical accounts: the impact of social and psychological symptoms such as body dysmorphia, depression, shame, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide-related deaths on patients’ illness narratives. Divorcing agency from the bacteria silences these important patient narratives with the consequence of a limited medical and social understanding of the signification of Lyme disease and the holistic methods needed for treatment. This paper furthermore argues that the inclusion of patient worldings of Borrelia acting in the medical renderings offers a democratic determination of what the illness is. Finally, building on Giraldo Herrera and Cadena, I argue for a decolonization of Borrelia, exploring how the pluriverse both takes the epistemologies of patients seriously and reveals medical equivocation.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2021-06-07 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2465
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 8, No 1-2 (2020): Finding Agency in Nonhumans
eng
Copyright (©) 2021 Ritti Soncco
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/994
2018-10-17T08:06:33Z
Relations:SRC
"160627 2016 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Posthuman Spaces of Relation: Literary Responses to the Species Boundary in Primate Literature
Villanueva Romero, Diana
Lecturer of English, University of Extremadura / Franklin Institute – GIECO, University of Alcalá
Array
This article aims at showing how contemporary literary responses to human-nonhuman primate relationships can be as valid a form of thinking about the animal as the philosophical and scientific roots of movements such as the Great Ape Project. Traditionally the ape has been the source of stories that question the definition of the human. Since the beginning of the modern animal liberation movement in the 1970s and thanks to the development of scientific fields such as cognitive ethology, primatology, and trans-species psychology, some fiction writers have produced works that develop alternative ways of thinking about the nonhuman primate. In order to understand the transformative power of the literary imagination this article first offers a short reflection on the connections between the posthuman turn and the development of literary animal studies. Secondly, after commenting on the main narratives that have nourished our relationship with nonhuman apes since the eighteenth century, it presents an overview of the main ape motifs that populate Anglophone literatures. And finally, it argues that literature compels us to transcend the category “human” and enter into a posthuman age that philosophers such as Cary Wolfe or Rosi Braidotti acknowledge as more in tune with the reality of who we are as a species: multiply hybridized in our constant interactions with nonhuman beings.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2016-06-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/994
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 4, No 1 (2016): Past the Human: Narrative Ontologies and Ontological Stories: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/994/3415
Copyright (©) 2018 Diana Villanueva Romero
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1345
2023-01-24T11:07:45Z
Relations:SRC
"181127 2018 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Contesting the Radical Monopoly: a Critical View on the Motorized Culture from a Cyclonaut Perspective
Delorme, Damien
Ph.D. Student and Teaching Fellow
Ph. D Student and
IRPHIL, Université Lyon 3 Jean Moulin
Faculté de théologie protestante, IRSE, Université de Genève
Lyon and Genève - France
Array
In our motorized societies, the “radical monopoly” (Illich) of the automobile is the evidence that our engine culture dominates. At the socio-technical level, we are all beginning to be “motorcentric”, in the same way that we are egocentric, ethnocentric, and anthropocentric. I argue that traveling on a bicycle – i.e. becoming a “cyclonaut” – engenders per se a decentering experience. It fosters a critical outlook on the norms and usages of engine culture. The cyclist perspective can provide a phenomenological experience that introduces levels of consciousness (sensitive, ethical and political), typically neglected in the status quo dominated by automobiles. The automobile radical monopoly contributes to the dependency on fossil fuels driving climate change. From an environmental virtue ethics standpoint, a cyclonaut’s experience promotes a new paradigm for mobility based on the re-appropriation of bodily-powered autonomous movement that broadens our social imagination and contributes to facing our current environmental crisis. It also promotes a positive shift in our value system that enables us to be an example of a richer experience. Contrary to the current irrational waste of energy, cycling can offer a joyfulness that reconnects us with the fundamental aspects of existence – self-awareness, connectivity to the world, nature, and beauty. This paper is based on reflections developed during the “Untaking Space Project”. a 6,000-mile philosophical cycling trip, from Miami to Vancouver, occurred between January and August 2016 (http://www.usproject2016.com).
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2018-11-27 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1345
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 6, No 2 (2018): Energy Ethics: Emerging Perspectives in a Time of Transition: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1345/4871
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1345/4872
Copyright (©) 2018 Damien Delorme
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/825
2018-10-17T08:06:32Z
Relations:SRC
"150511 2015 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
The Problem of Evil in Nature: Evolutionary Bases of the Prevalence of Disvalue
Horta, Oscar
University of Santiago de Compostela
Array
This paper examines the problem of evil in nature, that is, the issue of the disvalue present in nature, and the question of whether or not it prevails over happiness. The paper claims that disvalue actually outweighs happiness in nature. This is an unavoidable consequence of the existence of an evolutionary process in a context where resources are scarce. Because of this, suffering and early death are the norm in nature. The number of individuals who come into existence just to die in pain shortly after, vastly outweighs the number of those who survive. The paper also claims that the idea that the interests of nonhuman animals need not be considered in the same way as those of humans is speciesist and unacceptable, and that animals not only have an interest in not suffering, but also in not dying. In light of this, the paper concludes that the good things present in nature are vastly outweighed by the huge amount of disvalue that exists there, and that we should try to reduce such disvalue.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-05-11 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/825
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 3, No 1 (2015): Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature: Part I
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/825/2591
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/825/2592
Copyright (©) 2018 Oscar Horta
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/3158
2024-01-31T14:04:19Z
Relations:SRC
"230926 2023 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Language as Gesture and Giggling Rats
Rodriguez, Randall
University of Oregon
Array
The use of language is frequently cited as a metric for moral consideration. This metric is typically a tool to exclude animal being from the realm of ethics or to promote human exceptionalism. Maurice Merleau-Ponty claims language is a gesture with varying degrees of complexity. Many animal beings use gesture to convey meaning complex and abstract enough to qualify as language according to Merleau-Ponty’s parameters. Rats, despite being thought of as vermin and of a lower order, are some of the beings that convey abstract and complex meaning through gesture. Rats play, work, socialize, communicate meaning, and even laugh. Rats, along with human and many other animal beings use language and should be usured into the realm of moral consideration with any and all language using beings. If not, some other metric for exclusion would have to be adopted.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2023-09-26 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/3158
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 11, No 1 (2023): The Importance of Language in the Relationships between Humans and Non-Humans
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3158/11785
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3158/11786
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3158/11787
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3158/11788
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/3158/11789
Copyright (©) 2023 Randall Rodriguez
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/669
2018-11-28T11:57:10Z
Relations:SRC
"141111 2014 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Of Cows and Women: Gendered Human-Animal Relationships in Finnish Agriculture
Kaarlenkaski, Taija
PhD, researcher, University of Eastern Finland, School of humanities
Array
In the Nordic countries, the tending of cattle was regarded as women’s work in agrarian culture. This was also the case in Finland, where the gendered division of labor on farms was fairly strict until the mid-20th century. The purpose of this article is to discuss the gendered representations of animal husbandry and cows in written narratives collected in a public writing competition. The writing competition about the cow was arranged in 2004 by the Finnish Literature Society and the Union of Rural Education and Culture, and an exceptionally high number of stories were sent to the competition. It will be argued in the article that gender, embodiment and emotions are often intertwined in the practices of animal husbandry. According to my interpretation, one reason for the division of labor was the bodily relationship with cows, which was allowed for women but not for men. In addition to the division of work, there are other aspects of cattle tending in which gender and embodiment emerge in the narratives. For example, the cows are also frequently gendered: one typical way for especially women to represent cows is to emphasize their gender and to articulate solidarity between females.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2015-01-29 10:08:51
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/669
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 2, No 2 (2014): Minding Animals: Part II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/669/1758
Copyright (©) 2018 Taija Kaarlenkaski
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/2271
2022-07-20T08:35:01Z
Relations:SRC
"220713 2022 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Being There. If the Pairing of the Birdwatchers Affects the Pairing of the Birds
Uskoković, Evangelina W.
Uskoković, Theo W.
Uskokovic, Vuk
Array
The drives of inter-individual relationships within avian social groups are largely unexplored and relatively poorly understood, including how social landscapes affect the decisions of individuals within these groups. On a modest level, this study undertakes to expand this knowledge with an ornithological observation of temporary groupings among multiple aquatic species in response to the pairing of birdwatchers. More ambitiously, the study presumes the analogy between the social response of an avian community and the subliminal response of the human psyche to spatial stimuli. The number of bird pairs forming in flocks, coverts and rafts was consistently higher when the birds interacted with children teamed up in pairs than when solitary children interacted with the birds. Inadvertent social cues consequential to the extended duration of the focus, vigilance stimulation and subliminal messages affecting the neurological pathways in the brain and the social dynamics pertaining to proxemics are discussed as potential causes of this effect. Lastly, the structure of the paper mimics the lifetime of inventive ideas, which originate from a chaos of amorphous thought, then crystallize into a clarity of logical concepts open to elaboration, and eventually disperse into a similar semantic clutter as that from which they were born.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2022-07-13 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/2271
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 10, No 1 (2022): Animal Ethics, Ethology, and Food Ethics
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/2271/8791
Copyright (©) 2022 Vuk Uskokovic Uskokovic
oai:ojs.www.ledonline.it:article/1253
2023-01-24T11:04:49Z
Relations:SRC
"171128 2017 eng "
2280-9643
2283-3196
dc
Victims and responsibility. Restorative justice: a new path for justice towards non-human animals?
Bertolesi, Lorenzo
Array
In this paper I argue that restorative justice is a prolific and innovative way for reformulating the problem of justice towards non-human animals. First of all, I show that the most influential theories of political philosophy (Utilitarianism and Contractarianism) are inadequate for this purpose, as all the speculative perspectives on justice that try to define a normative concept of justice. Changing perspective and focusing on the actual victim’s experience of injustice can redefine the discussion about justice. For animals injustice is the result of the denial of their agency and a violation of their vulnerability. To think of animals as victims allows us to define humans’ responsibility for animals’ condition. This responsibility started with domestication and continues until the present domination of animals in our society. Therefore restorative justice, start from this responsibility: it is, first of all, a form of humans’ admission of guilt, but not only. I argue that restorative justice provides us with he chance to repay the victims of our wrongdoing. In this way, this compensation should be thought of not as punishment to those who have done wrong but as a way to re-establish the bond with a world of alterities commanded, submitted and dominated.
LED Edizioni Universitarie
2017-11-28 00:00:00
Peer-reviewed Article
application/pdf
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/view/1253
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism; Vol 5, No 2 (2017): Food: Shared Life: PART II
eng
https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Relations/article/download/1253/4506
Copyright (©) 2018 Lorenzo Bertolesi